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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24437983">Death of a Nation</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyanspica/pseuds/cyanspica'>cyanspica</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Death of a Nation [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hamilton - Miranda, The Last of Us</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - No American Revolution, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Apocalypse, Badass Alexander Hamilton, Badass James Madison, Badass Thomas Jefferson, Established Thomas Jefferson/James Madison, Grief/Mourning, Hamilton is Immune, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens, Pining, Road Trips, Slow Burn, Survivor Guilt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:55:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>142,880</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24437983</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyanspica/pseuds/cyanspica</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hamilton watches George Washington's inauguration thinking he'll see the beginning of a new nation. He's right—just not in the way he expected. Instead of watching Washington rally for the colonies' independence, he witnesses the start of the end of the world. The colonies' leaders are taken out in one fell swoop. Within a week, the English have abandoned them to protect their homeland. Months later find Hamilton alone, surviving for the sake of surviving. A chance encounter with two former politicians gives him the promise of surviving a little more successfully; a chance encounter with the infected gives him the chance to save the country.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alexander Hamilton/James Madison, Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens, Alexander Hamilton/Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton/Thomas Jefferson/James Madison, Thomas Jefferson/James Madison</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Death of a Nation [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1797781</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>253</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>382</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>fave fics for mental hellness</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Who Lives, Who Dies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“The results are in: in a historic vote, war hero George Washington—the colonies’ most prominent separatist—has been elected Ambassador to the English,” the newscaster reads.</p><p>The apartment erupts in cheers: Laurens hollers a victory cry; Hercules pops the cork on an explosive champagne bottle; the Schuyler sisters descend into a group hug. Even Aaron Burr manages a genuine smile for once.</p><p>That’s what finally drives the victory home. Hamilton slings an arm around Laurens’ shoulder, pulling him into a fierce kiss that only breaks up when Hercules punches his side.</p><p>“Get a room, you two,” he chides them, grinning.</p><p>“Uh, in case you forgot, this is our room,” Hamilton shoots back. “You’re in <em>our</em> apartment.”</p><p>Sometimes he can’t believe it—can’t believe it’s really his. The apartment, the boyfriend, the friends, the college, the city—it’s all his. This victory is <em>his</em>. This is the victory he’s been fighting for ever since he came to New York, the victory he’s chased almost his whole life. It’s freedom.</p><p>And when Laurens kisses him again, everything is perfect.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>               </p><p>They invite everyone back to watch Washington’s inauguration the next week. It’s a faster turnaround from election to induction than usual—but talk of military intervention on behalf of the English must speed things along. That aside, things have to happen quickly if they’re going to fan the flame of rebellion into a full-fledged fire. Washington is a man who knows the importance of capitalizing hard and fast on an opportunity. With the Redcoats shipping in by the boatload, it’s time to move fast.</p><p>The day of his inauguration, Hamilton paces ceaselessly around the apartment, barely able to contain his energy. Everyone arrives; he hardly even greets them, waits impatient for the speech to start. Laurens finally tires of his pacing, wrestles him into sitting down on the couch. The room fills with pleasant chatter, but Hamilton’s attention is focused only on the screen. It takes an eternity for Washington to at last appear.</p><p>“Good evening to all the citizens of the America colonies,” Washington begins, and the stage lights make the independence flag pin on his lapel glint.</p><p>The camera pans to an overhead shot of the capital: tens of thousands of people surround the stage. Hamilton half-regrets that he isn’t in the crowd—it’s only an hour-long train ride to Philadelphia—but Laurens talked him out of it. They’d have a better view on the TV, he said.</p><p>(What he means is that Henry Laurens will be there, and neither Hamilton nor John are on speaking terms with the man—and so Hamilton agrees to watch from New York.)</p><p>It <em>is </em>a good view. The stage is well-lit, the camerawork superb. The entire shot is right before them. Washington’s behind the podium, his hastily appointed Cabinet behind him: John Adams, Henry Laurens, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Arnold Benedict, Philip Schuyler, Charles Lee, John Hancock. There are even ambassadors from countries on less than good terms with the British—the Marquis de Lafayette, Baron von Steuben, a dozen others Hamilton doesn’t have time to identify before he refocuses on Washington.</p><p>“I’m here with a message for the American people, as well as for the British Parliament,” Washington continues. His face is smooth, free of hints, but his stance is energetic. “Over the past week, my Cabinet and I have comprehensively discussed how to step forward into a new era.”</p><p>“If it doesn’t involve kicking the shit out of Redcoats, I’m not interested,” Laurens jumps in, flashing Hamilton a playful grin.</p><p>“Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State, has spearheaded the creation of a document that we’ll now share with the world.” Washington steps away from the podium. “Secretary Jefferson, if you will.”</p><p>Hamilton scowls as the camera cuts away. Jefferson—the fucking prick—flashes a smile that shows too many teeth, then swaggers—<em>swaggers—</em>towards the podium.</p><p>“What the actual <em>fuck</em> is he wearing?” Hamilton asks, an open-ended question.</p><p>“Three-piece suit—looks bespoke, but I’d have to get closer to tell for sure,” Hercules answers, scrutinizing the screen. “Jesus—look at the tailoring. I fitted Lafayette for a three-piece once, but, shit, I’d kill to fit him too.”</p><p>"All that money, you'd think he could afford not to look like he drowned in a vat of fucking grape juice."</p><p>“Well, I think it’s hot,” Angelica chimes in as she shoots Hamilton a grin; surprising no one, including himself, he takes the bait.</p><p>“It’s fucking stupid is what it is. He’s a shit politician." Hamilton's eyes narrow at the memory of their one actual interaction, brief as it was. He looks over to his boyfriend for support. "And a fucking asshole—right, Laurens?”</p><p>“Sure, he can be kind of an asshole,” Laurens concedes, but he's only half paying attention, mostly riveted to the screen.</p><p>Gratified enough, Hamilton crosses his arms.</p><p>“Well, I think he likes you,” Burr mildly comments. “At least judging by the videos, he certainly seemed to find it funny when you punched—”</p><p>“Shut up.”</p><p>Burr smirks. Hamilton spares a moment to wonder why he bothered inviting him, but then his attention is drawn back to the screen. Jefferson inhales sharply (overdramatically, in Hamilton's opinion). Jefferson smooths out the lapels of his obnoxiously purple suit, then begins to read.</p><p>“In Congress, July 4, 2011. The unanimous Declaration of the fifty United States of America…”</p><p>The room falls silent as they listen, swept up in the moment as history happens before their eyes.</p><p>Hamilton hates to allow Jefferson anything, but it’s brilliant. It’s beautifully written, cuts to the heart of the issues and then some. It's exactly what the country needs if it’s ever going to be a country at all. Jefferson is a fucking asshole, but, unfortunately, he's also a fantastic fucking writer, a perfect fucking orator, and there are elements of genius behind his ass-backwards politics. Hamilton will allow him that much.</p><p>Jefferson speaks; the world listens.</p><p>And then there’s trouble with the sound system—distant popping, some kind of obnoxious feedback. The shot pans up over the crowd. The image hangs on the screen for only a moment, but movement towards the back of the crowd catches Hamilton's eye. Before he can make anything of it, the camera pans back to Jefferson.</p><p>“In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury…”</p><p>Jefferson’s mouth twitches in displeasure when more <em>pops </em>clutter his speech a few lines later, but he continues on seamlessly. The overhead shot reappears: this time, it’s clear something is happening. At the distant end of the crowd, movement parts the sea of bodies. People are scattering—running, he realizes a second later. It’s too high up to tell from what, but something’s wrong. This time, Hamilton isn’t the only one who notices.</p><p>“What’s going on back there?” Eliza asks, worry gnawing at her voice.</p><p>“Redcoats?” Laurens suggests. His mouth bends into a frown. Unsettled, his hand finds Hamilton's. “They wouldn’t assassinate someone in the middle of a speech. Right? Talk about inciting a fucking revolution.”</p><p>They all lean forward, but the camera is back on Jefferson before they can take a closer look.</p><p>It takes Jefferson half a dozen seconds to catch on, but suddenly, his stare is distinctly uneasy—he’s not looking at the camera any longer. He’s looking over it, his eyes focused on where the back of the crowd must be. Still, he goes on, even though his voice grows distant and glazed over as he speaks from memory alone. The <em>pops </em>grow louder, more frequent. In the background, Washington starts to shift, dark brows drawing together. The Cabinet exchanges unsettled glances.</p><p>“That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved… And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor,” Jefferson finishes, sounding barely aware of his own words.</p><p>Silence hangs in the air five seconds. Then ten. The shot cuts up—half the crowd now has realized that something is wrong, is running, splitting away. The shot cuts back down, and the panic reaches the front. Light on his feet as ever, Washington leaps into action, veering sideways to consult someone from the security team. Their conversation is intense, clearly confused—it’s clear that not even the bodyguards know what’s going on.</p><p>The camera stays focused on Jefferson’s face, unmoving. And then someone starts screaming.</p><p>No, <em>everyone</em> starts screaming. The <em>pops </em>are close; they’re gunshots, Hamilton realizes, horror dawning fully. Jefferson’s hands come to grip the side of the podium until his knuckles whiten. Madison starts to move towards him, and Hamilton can see terror splashed plain across the face of man he's never seen anything less than perfectly put-together.</p><p>And, finally, Jefferson sees what everyone is running from.</p><p>“My God,” he swears, his voice little more than a horrified whisper.</p><p>It’s the last thing that happens before the scene descends into chaos.</p><p>People tear through the curtains at the back of the stage, screaming. Shrieking bloody murder. It’s a fucking ambush. A bloodbath. Hamilton watches as the attackers rip out John Adams’ throat, watches on in petrified horror as they descend on him, watches sickened as arcs of blood sail through the air as they rip him apart. Philip Schuyler rushes to help him—one of the attackers grabs him from behind, and—the Schuyler sisters screams drown out everything else. In seconds, half the Cabinet is dead, and some of his closest friends have watched their dad die. </p><p>(It's not the last person they love that they'll watch die—not for the Schuylers. Not for him. Not for anyone). </p><p>Hamilton is frozen, rooted to the couch. Around him, everyone is yelling. In the adjacent apartments, people are yelling. All of New York City suddenly begins to yell. It deafens him—and then he hears none of it at all. It’s all on the other side of an impenetrable curtain. He can only sit still and watch.</p><p>Onscreen, the Cabinet’s security detail recovers. Guns are drawn; attackers are shot. Bodies fall. The survivors of the first wave race to a huddle in the center of the stage, back-to-back—all except Jefferson, still grey, still sick, still petrified as he watches something off-screen. Madison makes a desperate move towards him, shouts something, but the words are lost.</p><p>The shot cuts up.</p><p>For the first time, it zooms in on the crowd.</p><p>There’s so much blood.</p><p>Someone slaps him. The curtain parts. He jerks back to reality with a gasp.</p><p>“Alex,” Laurens tells him, gripping his shoulders tightly. “We need to—I don’t know what’s—we need to <em>go,</em> Alex. We need to get out of the city. What’s happening there—it’s close. Philadelphia's close. We’ve gotta go, baby. Okay?”</p><p>Hamilton can’t find it in himself to respond. He can barely even nod.</p><p>“I’m gonna pack,” Laurens tells him, and then he’s gone. The world goes silent once more.</p><p>The Schuyler sisters are still screaming, crying. Burr is stock-still in the corner, frozen. Hercules is shaking him, trying to snap him out of it—but like Burr, Hamilton can’t hear what he's saying. The curtain closes. It's silent again.</p><p>Hamilton returns to the screen.</p><p>Washington is shouting orders now, directing security officers. The bodies are piling up onstage. Hamilton can’t tell who’s an assailant, who’s a victim. The bodyguards are boxing the survivors in—but they’re losing. The circle gets tighter, tighter, tighter. Each time they take one of the attackers out, two more crawl onstage. They’re not just coming from behind the stage now. They’re coming from the sides too. The shot pans up. A wave of bodies rushes forwards, sprints towards the front of the stage. They're ten seconds away. Five.</p><p>Madison breaks formation, forces his way past the security detail. He grabs Jefferson, yanks him away from the podium, shouts, cups desperate hands around his face—Jefferson blinks, coming back to life. He says something, but Hamilton doesn't hear what. And then the two turn to Washington.</p><p>Half a dozen freaks stand in the way. Some turn to them. Hamilton can’t hear, but he still can read Washington’s lips.</p><p>“Run!" Washington shouts.</p><p>And the two of them have no choice. Even if they want to stay, they have no choice.</p><p>They run, and then they're gone.</p><p>A bloodied man gets close enough to the circle to grab a suited woman. He throws her down, falls atop her—Hamilton vomits. By the time he lifts his head again, what's left of the woman is unrecognizable as even human. Henry Laurens tries to help too late, kicks the man in the face—the man responds by sinking his teeth into Laurens’ leg.</p><p>Washington grabs a gun off a dead guard, shoots the man attacking Laurens. Every other Cabinet member with enough wherewithal to move follows suit—but it’s not enough. In less than another dozen seconds, the security detail has almost been wiped out. Then down goes John Hancock—torn apart. Then Benjamin Franklin—saved only at the last second by Baron von Steuben. Franklin gets up, bleeding, wounded, pale. Almost everyone left standing is hurt, bleeding, exhausted. Washington’s face is grim. He searches the stage with the calculating eyes of an old soldier, pauses, then yells to everyone that’s left, points—an opening.</p><p>Washington leads the charge. He turns left, shoots one person—a woman tackles him on the right. They fall hard; Washington shouts, tries to force the woman off him, her teeth get closer and closer to his neck—and then the Marquis de Lafayette slams frantically into her, knocks her off, brings the barrel of his gun down on her face again and again and <em>again</em> until Washington—<em>alive—</em>pulls him away with a desperate shout.</p><p>And they run.</p><p>The camera stays centered on the stage long after everyone is gone.</p><p>There are so many bodies. There’s so much blood. There are so many things onstage that shouldn’t be outside someone’s body. There’s—Hamilton vomits again, heaving until his ribs hurt so much his eyes water. He wants to pass out. He wants to close his eyes and wake up. He wants to—</p><p>The attackers left behind stagger aimlessly, their mouths open in screams. One staggers towards the camera, examining the abandoned lens with jaundiced eyes before it jerks away. They’re all soaked in blood. Some of it is theirs, Hamilton realizes. No—they’re <em>all </em>bleeding somewhere. They stagger listlessly, smack into one another, sometimes run off-screen. They’re dressed differently—some in street clothes, some in suits, some in pajamas. They’re men, women, old, young. There’s one that can’t be older than—</p><p>They’re not Redcoats.</p><p>They’re not coordinated. They’re not a cohesive attack—they’re something else.</p><p>There’s—they’re sick. They’re people. There’s something wrong with them.</p><p>“Alex, baby,” Laurens’ voice says in his ear, soothing, calming. He's gentler this time, his hand rubbing circles into Hamilton's palm, his forehead tipped against Hamilton's. “Philadelphia is too close to us. Whatever’s happening there will be here soon. We need to go, okay? Come on, Ham. Get up for me. Please.”</p><p>At the plea, Hamilton stumbles onto his feet, looking around the room. Angelica’s chest is heaving, but she’s recovered—she’s raiding their cabinets, stuffing purses, backpacks, rucksacks full of food. Peggy is filling bottles with water with shaking hands. Eliza comes out of the bathroom with a first-aid kit, tears still streaking her face. Hercules bursts out of the hall with a stuffed overnight bag and tosses it to a no longer catatonic Burr, who’s at the door, calling out orders, listing things they need.</p><p>“Right,” Hamilton distantly agrees, only distantly aware of Laurens’ hand in his. “Where are we going?”</p><p>“Upstate—to the Schuylers'. Anywhere out of the city.”</p><p>They pack. They race downstairs. They split up—the Schuyler sisters go in Burr’s car, and Hercules goes in his and Laurens’. </p><p>It's the last time they're all in New York. The last time they're all together. The last time they're all still alive.</p><p>They don't all stay alive, and Hamilton doesn't even get the chance to say the goodbyes he needs to say.</p><p>Laurens rides Burr's bumper as they screech through the city. It's a fucking nightmare. The streets are a disaster. People flood sidewalks, screaming, shouting, running. </p><p>Halfway out of the city, Burr speeds through a yellow light ahead of them—but a car swerves in front of theirs and cuts them off. The light turns red. The car in front of them stops. They’re grid-locked, trapped, and Burr and the Schuylers are long gone by the time they get moving again.</p><p>And just like that, Hamilton is separated from half his friends.</p><p>An asshole driver—that’s all it takes. Sitting in traffic, Hamilton is suddenly acutely aware that he may never see any of them again.</p><p>Traffic crawls. People scream. Cars crash. Sirens wail. Everyone is trying to get out of New York, and in their efforts, they trap everyone else.</p><p>It’s hours later—night—before they even make it to the Brooklyn Bridge. They’re still trapped in traffic, and now they're limited to exactly two points of escape—and one of the leads back into the place they're trying to escape. Laurens is pale, sweating, shaky at the wheel. Hercules hums nervously. Hamilton thinks.</p><p>Philadelphia is closer than they think.</p><p>The monsters come.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>               </p><p>Hamilton and Laurens escape New York by the skin of their teeth. They have to ditch the car on the bridge, and they get separated, lose sight of Hercules somewhere in the fray. The ambush was too much to keep track of him. He was behind them, and then he wasn't. If Hamilton hadn’t been holding onto Laurens’ hand the entire time, they would’ve been separated too. And he'd be alone.</p><p>But now they're alone.</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t expect he’ll ever see Hercules again. Laurens probably doesn’t either, but they never say it aloud. If they don’t acknowledge it, then they don’t have to consider the possibility that he’s dead. Because the possibility becomes all too real when they make it to the Schuylers’ estate a week later.</p><p>The others have been there already—and they’ve already left.</p><p>Every window and door in the house is broken. Vases are smashed, furniture is destroyed. A dozen dead bodies litter the foyer. Another dozen are in the den. Five scatter the stairs.</p><p>There’s only one body upstairs, but it belongs to someone they know.</p><p>She looks almost peaceful.</p><p>Her body is laid out on her bed, and her hair is combed, and despite that she must have died in terrible, terrible pain, her expression is peaceful.</p><p>A bouquet of bright yellow daffodils lies atop her chest, but she’s dead.</p><p>Peggy Schuyler is dead.</p><p>Her right leg is missing, and she’s dead, and neither he nor Laurens have a single fucking idea where their friends are now. There's a note penned hastily in Burr's handwriting, a promise that he and Angelica and Eliza are all headed west, but that's so vague it may as well be nothing.</p><p>It’s them—it’s just them. It might <em>only</em> be them.</p><p>They head south—on-foot, no less. New York suddenly no longer seems like home, and now Hamilton has nothing but his boyfriend at his side.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Laurens makes it all bearable. They keep each other going—and what's more than that, they give each other a reason to keep going. The world gets worse and worse, but he and Laurens just hold each other that much tighter, work that much harder to make the other smile. It's hard when they end most days more blood-soaked and more flat-eyed than they began them, but nothing else is easy anymore.</p><p>And Hamilton knows what it is to survive. He knows what it is to be hungry, to fight, to survive.</p><p>The world gets worse, but Hamilton holds on. Holds onto John.</p><p>(Tightly, frantically, desperately afraid of ending up alone).</p><p>And sometimes there are moments between the two of them that almost make Hamilton forget everything else.</p><p>“What the fuck are you doing?” Hamilton asks Laurens in the middle of a West Virginian mall.</p><p>Laurens looks up from the cash register he’s trying to wrench open, sheepish. It’s August, and they’ve been headed south for six weeks.</p><p>There’s been news about the infection, the toll it’s taken, the Redcoats' retreat, the collapse of half the damn world—it’s all bad. But the lack of news on other things is worse: there's no news on the remaining Cabinet members, no news on their friends, no news on a cure or a vaccine for the thing—the infection. But the two of them are still alive, and they're still at each other's side, and that's how they find themselves looting an abandoned mall in West Virginia.</p><p>“Are you seriously robbing the fucking food court in the middle of the apocalypse?” Hamilton can’t help it: he laughs. “I mean, shit, The Dairy Queen? Seriously, Laurens? Is nothing sacred?”</p><p>Laurens manages an unapologetic grin.</p><p>“I saw a photo booth. I mean—we didn’t think to take any pictures when we left the city. We just had to go. So I thought we could take some here? Just in case we can’t go get the ones from New York.”</p><p>“I can’t believe Henry Laurens’ son has to result to petty thievery for a handful of change. It really is end times,” Hamilton jokes as he joins Laurens’ side. “Here. The trick’s to jimmy it like this…”</p><p>The photos are stupid and dumb and goofy, but they take a dozen strips until the machine dies with a mechanical cry. Hamilton picks his favorite photo strip of Laurens, stuffs it into his coat’s inner pocket. Laurens kisses him long and slow, then sticks the rest in his wallet. Hamilton doesn't ever ask to see them again—and he doesn't ever get to.</p><p>All he ends up with is the single strip—three photos, and he's not even in one. Three photos.</p><p>Like he and Laurens were never in love at all.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It’s September by the time the two of them make it to South Carolina. It’s nice this late in the year, and Laurens’ family estate is untouched. There’s no sign of anyone else from the Laurens' family—but there’s no blood either.</p><p>Laurens finds his dad’s armory. He teaches Hamilton how to shoot. He shows Hamilton how to start a fire, how to make a camp, how to forage and hunt. He shows him every Boy Scout trick he knows; then, when he’s out, they raid his family’s library to learn more. Slowly, cautiously, their wounds—physical and otherwise—start to close.</p><p>For a while, things seem alright.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Did you see what happened to my dad?” Laurens asks him one night in bed, his voice thin.</p><p>It’s the question Hamilton has been waiting months to hear—and yet, even after all this time, he still doesn’t know how to answer. As it turns out, his silence is answer enough.</p><p>“Was it quick?” Laurens asks, his eyes sliding shut.</p><p>“He was… it was, uh... it was noble. He was trying to save someone,” Hamilton struggles to say, at a rare loss for words. “And he got bit.”</p><p>Laurens’ sigh never seems to end.</p><p>Out of the early days, they know now what the bite means.</p><p>A gruesome fever, a painful drawn-out descent into becoming one of the infected.</p><p>Sickness. Amnesia. Aggression. Insanity. Fury.</p><p>Inevitable. Inevitable, unstoppable, incurable.</p><p>What they didn’t know in the early days hurt them. What happened to Henry Laurens might’ve hurt anyone he was with when he turned: implications settle in, multiply, fold in on themselves.</p><p>“I wish—I wish we’d fixed things,” Laurens says a long while later. “I never would’ve…”</p><p>Laurens doesn't seem to know what to say.</p><p>Hamilton doesn't either.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The estate gets dangerous, too hard to protect: the infected are circling. Before much longer, so are the survivors.</p><p>They head to Charleston. It’s supposed to be a safe haven—a holdout. It’s supposed to have concrete walls fifteen feet high, a huge, heavily armed militia. It’s supposed to have medicine. It’s supposed to have food, fresh water, electricity.</p><p>It has all those things.</p><p>But it falls anyway.</p><p>And Hamilton loses Laurens.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton reverts to his Nevis state of mind: survive. It’s all he has.</p><p>His New York friends are missing at best, <em>dead</em> dead if they’re lucky. Laurens is gone. New York is gone: it was one of the first cities they bombed back when they thought the virus could be contained. Naturally, he learned that after Laurens died. The revolution he dreamed of for so long is gone too—the English pulled most of the Redcoats of the colonies the first week to defend the motherland, and the ones that are left are centered in the cities. It’s viciously ironic: The States mostly got their freedom in the end.</p><p>All that’s left of the country are rats wrestling for scraps. Hamilton hears now and then about the scant handful of safe cities along the eastern seaboard, but he doesn't believe the rumors. There are no safe cities. Only places filled with false senses of security and people one mistake away from being trapped with ten-thousand infected.</p><p>He misses Laurens so, so much. He wakes up cold and hollow in the mornings. His days are empty. He sees himself reflected in mirrors and doesn't recognize his face.</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t have any reason to survive, but he keeps on breathing out of habit.</p><p>Winter ends; springs starts.</p><p>Hamilton’s still breathing.</p><p>He hears rumors about more bombed cities, about roaming gangs of bandits, about millions and millions dead. He hears news about the virus—but it’s always different news, almost always contradicting something else he’s heard. He doesn’t care anyways—all that matters is that the infected die if you shoot them enough. Or stab them. Or bludgeon them. It’s a little like killing a person, he reasons.</p><p>The only news he pays attention to is news about Washington. Somehow, Washington has become the last remnant of his old life. Rumors swirl: <em>Washington died in Philadelphia, Washington escaped Philadelphia, Washington is forming an army, Washington is going to save us all.</em></p><p>Hamilton isn’t even sure which of the rumors he believes, but hearing about him gives him the weakest of illusions that everything is fine. He can almost imagine he’s back at Columbia in his domestic policy class, can almost imagine that he’s about to get into a fistfight with Seabury in the quad over whether the colonies should split, can almost imagine that Laurens will be at his side if he looks sideways. He thinks of Hercules and Burr, Angelica and Eliza and Peggy, and of how he tried so hard all those years just to end up alone.</p><p>Summer ends. The weather’s going to get colder soon, but Hamilton doesn't care. He doesn't want to die, but if he went to bed one night and just fucking froze to death, what difference would it make? None. Not a fucking difference at all.</p><p>He's tired of the south. He’s tired of South Carolina. He never wants to think about Charleston again.</p><p>Hamilton heads north.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>A door screeches open; Hamilton jerks awake. It’s September. He’s alone, hungry, cold, and apparently now potentially in danger of being murdered by a bandit.</p><p>“Could you be a little louder?” a throaty voice chastises someone else.</p><p>Hamilton swears silently—he’s outnumbered too. Fantastic. He bolts out of the bed, snags his backpack, then dashes to the window. It takes him all of three seconds to realize some moron’s painted over the entire thing at some point, sealing the frame shut. Hamilton curses out loud this time.</p><p>He weighs his options. He can break the window, risk being heard and caught before he makes his escape. He can hide, risk being caught and killed where he stands. He can even run, but even if he can get out of the room without making a sound, chances are he won’t make it down the stairs without giving himself away. He regrets deciding to hunker down for the night in the only house for miles. He should’ve just toughed out the cold. </p><p>Footsteps approach, then stop outside the bedroom door. Someone tries the knob—it’s locked, of course, and Hamilton has jammed the door shut with a dresser. Neither will hold.</p><p>Hamilton decides to take his chances with the window. His elbow flies into the glass pane, shattering half the frame. Another couple swings clear enough of the glass for Hamilton to crawl through, slicing himself open in half a dozen places as he goes.</p><p>“Shit—there’s someone here!” a voice shouts outside the door.</p><p>Hamilton makes it onto the roof, glancing down at the ground fifteen feet below. He swallows hard, edges to the end, dangles off the side—then drops. He hits the ground hard, but makes sure not to lock his ankles, falls onto his ass instead. His joints don’t fucking appreciate it, but they don’t break, which is good enough. Hamilton scrambles onto his feet, then dashes into the abandoned field behind the house. A moment later, two men burst out the back door, guns brandished.</p><p>“Did you see him?” the taller of the two asks the other, eyeing the fields.</p><p>His eyes land on where Hamilton is hiding and pause for a blindingly long second. But they move on.</p><p>“No,” the shorter man replies, shaking his head with a sigh. He lowers his gun. “Whoever it was, you scared them off.”</p><p>Hamilton edges further into the fields.</p><p>He makes it half a mile before he realizes he left the photos on the nightstand.</p><p>Hamilton sucks in a ragged breath, desperately trying not to panic. No one would give a shit about a crappy mall photo strip. No one would take it—not even bandits. There would be no reason to. He can go back later, get it after they’re gone—but even as he’s telling it to himself, he’s already turning around, running back.</p><p>It’s all he has left of Laurens. Hamilton’s already forgetting his voice. He can’t forget his hair, his freckles, his smile. He can’t. It’s all he has to hold onto. All that's keeping him from truly being alone.</p><p>
  <em>It’ll be fine—it’s just a fucking photo strip. They won’t give a damn.</em>
</p><p>Hamilton slows as he creeps up to back of the house below the kitchen.</p><p>“Who the hell would have a photo strip of John Laurens?” one of the men asks, shaking his head.</p><p>
  <em>God-fucking-damnit.</em>
</p><p>He barely resists shouting it aloud, has to force himself not to kick the wall in front of him. Only when he’s calmer does he finally peek through the kitchen window—and there, in the middle of the fucking table, are his photos. Right between the two men and the loaded guns lying on the table.</p><p>It’s a pure act of God that Hamilton doesn’t scream.</p><p>“Plenty of women have pictures of you in their room,” the other man evenly replies, amused.</p><p>“Yeah, because I’m gorgeous. And I’m Adonis himself next to every other damn politician in Philadelphia.” A pause, a click of a tongue. “Except you, of course,” the man tacks on, his drawl obnoxiously Southern and even more obnoxiously cocky.</p><p>Without even having seen the man's face, Hamilton wants to strangle him.</p><p>“Besides,” Southern jackass goes on, “Laurens is in college. He’s not on TV every damn weekend. He didn’t write the goddamned Declaration of Independence, for fuck’s sake.”</p><p>“Plenty of people have inopportune crushes on college men,” the level-headed voice counters.</p><p>The two go on with their bantering, but Hamilton is already forming a plan. If he can get them out of the kitchen, he can dash in through the back door, grab the pictures, then be gone before they’re any the wiser he was ever there. Hamilton creeps around the side of the house, weighing what kind of distraction he needs.</p><p>The answer is waiting for him in the driveway.</p><p>Hamilton has to resist gaping at the car parked there. He knows next-to-nothing about cars, but he recognizes the Cadillac stamp on the front, and he can tell something’s expensive when he sees it. Glossy black paint gleams in the light and dark-tinted windows obscure what most be a ridiculously luxurious interior. If the men are in fact bandits, they’re obviously pretty fucking good at it.</p><p>Hamilton crouches down beside the front porch. He picks up a rock, weighs it in his hand, then sends it soaring. It <em>thunks </em>with a screech against the side of the car. The car’s alarm flashes, shrieks something violent right away—Jesus<em>. </em>Hamilton hopes there aren’t any infected nearby because he may as well as have started up a missile silo. He barely makes it around the side of the house before the men burst out the front door. Instantly, Hamilton breaks into a sprint, throws open the kitchen door.</p><p>He grabs the photo strip, turns, almost makes it out the back door—and then a bullet whizzes right past his face. The doorframe cracks; splinters of wood nearly impale him. Hamilton almost makes a break for it anyway, but then someone else is in front of him, blocking the exit. There are two guns pointed at him now—one in his face and the other at his back. Hamilton’s fingers tighten around the photo strip, holding on—holding onto Laurens.</p><p><em>Guess I couldn't take my time, </em>he thinks, wry, apologetic.</p><p>“Well,” Hamilton at last says aloud, defiant. He lifts his chin, faces what he's thought about so much that it feels more like a memory than a moment. “Fucking do it.”</p><p>He doesn’t even look at the man until the gun’s been leveled quietly at his face a second too long.</p><p>“We know him,” the one in front of him tells the other after a pause.</p><p>“We do?” obnoxious Southerner asks—and Jesus, why is his voice so familiarly punchable?</p><p>Hamilton turns around, and the realization hits him like a slap to the face.</p><p>It’s Thomas fucking Jefferson—and that makes the other man James Madison.</p><p>Jefferson narrows his eyes at Hamilton, slower on the uptake. Then, slowly, his eyes widen. And then he bursts out laughing—fucking <em>guffawing</em>, and that’s the first time Hamilton has ever appreciated that goddamn word. But that’s what it is—a goddamned guffaw. Hamilton’s hands twitch.</p><p>“Holy shit,” Jefferson drawls, his eyes wide with delight. “It’s the kid who got shitfaced and punched Henry Laurens in the face—and at his own damn gala!”</p><p>“I wasn’t drunk,” Hamilton snarls, earning himself a look of incredulity from Jefferson.</p><p>“My <em>god.</em> That just makes it better,” he replies, fucking guffawing again. Apparently, the apocalypse hasn’t made him any less of an asshole. “Yeah, I remember you. Jesus. Punching Henry—shit, you’re John Laurens’ boyfriend too, aren’t you? Jesus, punching a famous politician—and your boyfriend’s dad, no less—at a highly publicized charity event. Christ, I couldn’t. I laughed myself sick—best goddamned thing I’ve ever seen.”</p><p>Hamilton staggers a little at the mention of John’s name, the air sucked out of his lungs.</p><p>“I…” he says, closing his eyes. If he keeps them shut, he won’t cry—and he won’t cry.</p><p>There’s a moment of silence, and when he opens his eyes, Jefferson’s face has fallen.</p><p>“Uh, John. He’s not with you.”</p><p>Hamilton swallows.</p><p>Madison slips past Hamilton into the kitchen, his gun lowered. Jefferson quickly follows suit. The two exchange a long, complicated, unintelligible series of raised brows and tipped heads, then Madison turns to Hamilton. Obviously, he’s been elected the delegate here.</p><p>“We’re sorry for frightening you,” he apologizes, voice all-too-even. “We were hoping to rest somewhere where we could stretch out a bit. Sleeping in the Escalade gets uncomfortable after a few days.”</p><p>“Yeah, and thanks for throwing a rock at my car, by the way,” Jefferson cuts in, scowling. “You scratched the paint.”</p><p>“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hamilton sarcastically shoots back, glaring. He can do this. He can do this if it means he doesn't have to think about Laurens, so he stabs a finger towards the bullet hole in doorway. “Is that why you tried to fucking shoot me?”</p><p>“I shot <em>at </em>you. If I’d wanted to shoot you, I would’ve used my shotgun.”</p><p>“Funny way of saying you missed.”</p><p>Hamilton can tell Jefferson is about to say something else that’s going to piss him off—Madison shoots him a pointed look. Jefferson rolls his eyes but shuts the hell up.</p><p>“Are you hungry?” Madison placidly asks Hamilton, a thinly veiled attempt to smooth things over.</p><p>Hamilton wants to say no, but truth is, he hasn’t eaten in… well, at least a day. It’s been weeks since he had a full stomach. Longer than that since he’s had three full meals a day. But the two of them look well-fed enough. A little thinner than their TV days, maybe, but not bone-thin like him. They look good overall, actually. Well-rested, well-groomed, well-dressed.</p><p>Hamilton, on the other hand—well, he’s not as well-kept as he once was.</p><p>“What were you going to eat?” he dubiously asks, reluctant to feel like he owes anyone anything.</p><p>“I was thinking mac-and-cheese,” Jefferson answers at the same time Madison miserably answers <em>anything but mac-and-cheese. </em>Hamilton glances between the two, but curiosity gets the better of him.</p><p>“How do you make mac-and-cheese without milk?”</p><p>“With bourbon, obviously.”</p><p>When he realizes Jefferson is serious, Hamilton barely manages to suppress a gag.</p><p>“Yes, and eating it voids him of the responsibility for driving for several hours, which is what he’s really trying to do,” Madison wryly interrupts, glaring at Jefferson. “But if that’s what you want, there’s powdered milk to spare you from his abomination.”</p><p>Hamilton has mac-and-cheese—the powdered milk kind. It’s thin and watery and desperately missing butter, but it’s the best goddamned thing he’s ever tasted. He inhales his bowl, ignoring the pity in the room, saying nothing, letting uncomfortable silence settle over them all. Jefferson—probably the least charitable man alive—even offers him seconds. That’s how Hamilton knows just how fucking sad he looks.</p><p>Apparently, he’s so sad that not even giving him dinner is enough charity.</p><p>“Would you like a change of clothes?” Madison politely offers when Hamilton’s done eating. His eyes are on Hamilton’s front. “I’m sure I have something in the car that’s your size.”</p><p>Hamilton glances down at what he’s wearing for the first time in weeks. All at once, he notices the holes and tears in his Columbia sweatshirt, the half-dozen stains, the dried black-brown blood splashed across the front. He was wearing this sweatshirt in Charleston when—oh. Oh. It’s John's blood.</p><p>He’s covered in Laurens’ blood. He's wearing his own boyfriend's blood, and he didn’t even know.</p><p>Suddenly, Hamilton regrets eating so much.</p><p>“I—uh… that’d be nice. Yeah,” Hamilton queasily agrees.</p><p>Madison leaves to get the clothes, but Hamilton can’t stand it any longer. He shucks off the sweatshirt, his sweater, leaves himself in nothing but a raggedy old sleep shirt. It’s cold in the kitchen, of course, and Hamilton has to clasp thin arms around his narrow chest not to break down shivering. Jefferson eyes him from across the table, saying nothing but looking like he wants to. The air in the room is thick.</p><p>Finally, Jefferson clears his throat, nodding towards the photo strip by Hamilton’s bowl.</p><p>“I’m sorry about—”</p><p>“I don’t want to talk about it,” Hamilton interrupts him. “I don’t want to ever even think about it again.”</p><p>Jefferson—even despite his shitty politics and shitty personality—has the human decency to nod. He looks down at his hands. They sit in silence until Madison return with a stack of clothes. Hamilton retreats up the stairs to change.</p><p>As he changes, he’s acutely aware that the shirt alone is probably worth more than his old monthly paycheck. It’s all designer, all high-end, all fancy fabric: silk and cashmere and heavy, warm wool. Hamilton feels like a stranger in his own skin when he glances into the mirror and sees someone who can blow a thousand dollars on an outfit looking back. Not that money really matters these days. Theoretically, Hamilton could break into a Neiman Marcus store or wherever rich people used to shop and take a thousand-dollar outfit for free.</p><p>Still.</p><p>He'd be short a hundred dollar haircut anyways.</p><p>Hamilton pads silently down the stairs, stops when he hears Jefferson and Madison talking in the kitchen.</p><p>“—<em>sad. What are…?”</em></p><p>
  <em>“Not our… John… loose cannon…”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Favor… kid… shot him… dead…”</em>
</p><p>Hamilton edges closer.</p><p>“—and what about us?”</p><p>Footsteps near, and Hamilton loudly walks down the last few steps as if he weren’t eavesdropping. Jefferson emerges from the kitchen, his jaw gritted tight. Madison follows close behind, but whatever conversation they were having is cut short when they notice him.</p><p>“Thanks,” Hamilton tells them. He shifts. Silence, the word of the fucking night, hangs in air. “Well, I’ve got to get going.”</p><p>“Oh? To where, exactly?” Jefferson asks, arching his brows.</p><p>“Wherever I want,” he brusquely answers, wanting this interaction to be over and in the past.</p><p>He wants to go.</p><p>There’s no point in heading anywhere. It’s better not to go anywhere, to just walk in whatever direction looks best on any given day. Hamilton never heads to places anymore—he just goes somewhere else. He settles down for the night wherever there’s shelter. He scavenges whenever there’s a place to search. He kills infected when they’re infected in the way. He keeps moving. He’s always moving. If he stays still too long, he has nothing to do but think.</p><p>“There’s supposed to be a safe city in Richmond,” Madison offers.</p><p>“Have you ever <em>been </em>in a safe city?” Hamilton spits, anger welling in his chest. “Because if you haven’t, fucking don’t. You’re better off with a horde of bandits.” He slings his backpack over his shoulder, pauses. Then, calmer, he tells them: “I’m going north. I’m tired of the fucking humidity down here.”</p><p>Jefferson and Madison exchange another long, complicated eye-contact-only conversation. Finally, Madison turns back to him, pity plain on his face.</p><p>“Well, there’s room in the Escalade if you’d like a ride.”</p><p>Hamilton shakes his head.</p><p>“I don’t have food. Or ammo.” His throat grows dry, but he forces out the rest. “Laurens is dead—so’s his dad, if that matters. Helping me isn’t going to get you any political favors.”</p><p>“Yeah, somehow I doubt the political favors I’ve got stacked up are gonna do me any good for a while anyways,” Jefferson drawls, shaking his head. “Fuck’s sake, kid—”</p><p>“Don't call me <em>kid.”</em></p><p>“For fuck’s sake, Hamilton. Just let us do you a courtesy—consider it payback for all the laughing I got out of seeing you sucker-punch Henry Laurens in the face.”</p><p>“You’ve already done me two courtesies,” Hamilton shoots back, shaking his head. “And I’m not your goddamned charity case. I don't want your help. I’m doing just fine on my own, thanks.”</p><p>Jefferson rolls his eyes, looks down at Hamilton.</p><p>“Like hell you are. You’re alone, you’ve lost thirty pounds since I last saw you, you just admitted you don’t have food or ammo, you smell like a corpse, and you <em>apparently </em>didn’t notice you’ve been covered in blood for fuck knows how long. You’re so goddamned pathetic right now that I’d be a monster if I didn’t personally read you a bed-time story and tuck you in.”</p><p>“I thought Thomas Jefferson was a believer in people pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps?” he asks, anger swelling in his chest.</p><p>“Yeah, well, clearly yours are broken.”</p><p>Hamilton stalks forward, stabbing a finger into Jefferson’s chest.</p><p>“Leave me the fuck alone,” he snarls.</p><p>“Or else <em>what? </em>Are you gonna punch me too?” Jefferson challenges him, tipping his chin back defiantly.</p><p>Hamilton considers it for a long second, but Madison is watching from just behind Jefferson, his eyes dark and threatening. He shakes his head once in warning, and, gradually, Hamilton unclenches his fists.</p><p>“Fuck you,” he spits instead of taking a swing. “You’re a shitty politician, and you’re a shitty fucking person, and you can go fuck all your shitty self-righteousness right out of yourself.”</p><p>Jefferson barely blinks.</p><p>“I’ve read worse from twelve-year-olds on Twitter.”</p><p>Hamilton was definitely been pegged as one of the twelve-year-olds Jefferson is talking about—but he’s better than this. He's better than wasting his breath here when it doesn't even matter anyways. He's better than this.</p><p>Probably. He tries to convince himself he’s better than this.</p><p>He just—he can’t fucking <em>believe </em>that John is dead, that Peggy is dead, that Washington himself is probably dead, but that these two bastards made it out unscathed. And why? Because Jefferson froze, probably pissed himself at the podium? Because they ran away at the right time?</p><p>Hamilton wants to scream. He doesn't want their pity; he's not their goddamned obligation. They don't even know each other. The only time they've ever even been in the same room was at Henry Laurens' gala, and Hamilton himself got kicked out within an hour. He doesn't want their help. They don't him owe him anything, and he doesn't want a damn thing. </p><p>Hamilton pushes past Jefferson, but the man grabs his arm.</p><p>“What, did John tell you to get yourself killed out of pride before he went?”</p><p>Hamilton stops dead.</p><p>The room goes red. Time slows.</p><p>This time, Hamilton punches him. Full force, square in the face. So hard that his knuckles pop and crack and maybe even fucking break.</p><p>There’s a single second of shock, then Jefferson groans and drops like a goddamned sack of rocks—and before Madison can react, Hamilton is out the door, blind with rage.</p><p>He walks a long, long time before the rumble of a car breaks him from his thoughts. He refuses to look back, refuses to look even as the car pulls up beside him. It follows him at a crawl ten, twenty, thirty feet. Hamilton finally breaks down, whirling to the look through the passenger window.</p><p>“What?” he snarls, his face contorted in anger when Jefferson’s face greets him.</p><p>Jefferson sighs, running a hand over his jaw.</p><p>“Get in the damn car,” he tells him.</p><p>There’s only the barest hint of an apology in his voice, but the skin below his right eye is darkening to a delightful purple-blue, and he looks vaguely—<em>vaguely—</em>sad. Sorry, even. It’s probably the best Hamilton can ever expect to get out of an asshole of Jefferson’s proportion.</p><p>Hamilton hesitates.</p><p>“I don’t want your fucking help,” he tells them, tells himself, but it sounds tired even to his own ears.</p><p>In the driver’s seat, Madison speaks up.</p><p>“It’s going to get dark soon. At least let us drive you back to the house.”</p><p>Hamilton thinks about that, then thinks about his odds of making it a night in the dark when he has no ammo, no food—nothing much more than a knife and couple of books in his backpack. His odds aren’t abysmal—he’s made it through worse, gone days without eating, been outnumbered a dozen to one and come out on top.</p><p>But it’s a numbers game. It’s always a numbers game.</p><p>Even the house loses to the players sometimes.</p><p>“Is Washington alive?” Hamilton finally asks, the words spilling unexpectedly out of his mouth.</p><p>Jefferson and Madison blink in surprise, exchange a look. The silence answers the question long before Madison ever does.</p><p>“No. None of the others made it out of Philadelphia.”</p><p>Hamilton closes his eyes. The last façade of normality vanishes.</p><p>“Oh,” he says. Without knowing why, he explains, “I worked for his campaign. First Ambassador I ever voted for. I, uh... guess he was the last too.”</p><p>And all at once, it hits Hamilton just how tired he is. He doesn't think he can walk another damn step without falling over. He can barely fucking stand.</p><p>"He was a good man," Madison says, voice softening just a little from its steel. "A good friend."</p><p>"You know, he knew your name," Jefferson adds. Hamilton looks up, eyes widening. Jefferson's face is mostly expressionless, but he notes Hamilton's interest, goes on. "Guess you caught his attention at the gala. Said you were, uh, what was it, Jemmy?"</p><p>"Someone with a promising future," Madison finishes. His stare pierces Hamilton through. "If you could do a little to curb your overenthusiasm."</p><p>The information hits Hamilton harder than he expects. A heady mix of grief and exhilaration swells in his chest. Washington knew his name. Knew him. The greatest man to ever live knew his name—but he's as dead as the future he predicted Hamilton could have.</p><p>It's all too much. It's too much to have to think so much about John, to be confronted with too many reminders of the past, too much news to process at once. He's tired. He's so, so fucking tired, and he can't walk another step.</p><p>So Hamilton caves, opens the car door, sinks into the back seat. </p><p>He’s just surviving, he reasons. That’s all that matters. He doesn’t have to care; he doesn’t even think he could. He doesn’t have to accept their help going forward. He just wants to rest a minute, and his odds of making it through the night are a little better if he rests somewhere other than the side of the road.</p><p>“Which way?” Madison mildly asks.</p><p>Hamilton closes his eyes. He can improve his odds a while, cut loose once they drag him down. It’s a temporary arrangement. He can endure it for as long as he has to.</p><p>“I don’t care,” he wearily answers. “Just take me the fuck away from South Carolina.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton isn’t used to being around other people.</p><p>He doesn’t talk to them much. It’s easier not to. It’s better to save his energy, better not to care when he knows he’s going to leave the first moment it hurts him to stay.</p><p>Hamilton goes where they go—and he does the rest himself. He doesn’t allow himself to get soft. If they stop somewhere, he goes out scavenging before they’ve even decided how long they’re going to stay. He starts their fires, checks the perimeters, clears the buildings. He doesn’t let them do any heavy lifting for him. He sleeps as little as always.</p><p>This is a temporary arrangement: he’ll still have to take care of himself when it’s over.</p><p>It’s for the best it’s temporary.</p><p>“I can’t believe you listen to opera,” Hamilton scoffs from the back seat after a few days. "I didn't think real people did."</p><p>Like always, Madison glances in the rear-view mirror with almost-startled eyes, like he’s surprised to see Hamilton’s still there.</p><p>“We always listen to operas,” Madison mildly remarks. Glancing aside, he smiles faintly at Jefferson, who smiles back—another silent conversation Hamilton’s left out of. “There's lots to be learned from the genre. I enjoy them."</p><p>“Yeah, and the first few times you put them on, I thought it was a joke,” he shoots back.</p><p>“And what do you listen to?” Jefferson’s voice is honey-slow and unimpressed. “Let me guess: experimental rock groups that exclusively play five-hundred person venues?”</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t answer this time, too infuriated by the fact that Jefferson is right.</p><p>He picks through every place they stop at for weeks. He strikes gold in an old record store when he finds a bargain bin full of cassette tapes. Striking gold might actually be a bit of an exaggeration, but—</p><p>“Avant-garde jazz?” Jefferson dubiously asks when Hamilton presents the tape—but he slips into the stereo player anyways.</p><p>It’s nice to be able to listen to music in a language he actually knows. It’s nice to listen to music at all—not that he’d admit it to either of them. And maybe it’s for the best Hamilton can’t find any of his favorite bands. It’d probably just dredge up memories he doesn’t have the strength to think about.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>As time passes, Hamilton starts to wonder if the problem isn’t that he’s not used to being around other people, but that it’s not really fair to classify Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as <em>other people,</em> whatever those words even mean.</p><p>Other people don’t willingly listen to opera in the car. Other people don’t wear button-ups and Louboutins and a Rolex in the middle of the apocalypse (Jefferson). Other people don’t constantly wear scarves for—fashion? Fuck if Hamilton knows. But there’s no reason to always be wearing a scarf (Madison). It’s not even cold this time of year, for Christ's sake.</p><p>The biggest difference is that with enough time, Hamilton might actually grow to like other people; Jefferson and Madison are not other people. And there's no one else he can complain to, no other, normal people in sigh. To vent his frustrations, Hamilton starts to list the reasons why Madison and Jefferson belong to their own fucking class.</p>
<ol>
<li>
<em>Apparently when the world was ending, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison decided that it was a good use of their extremely limited trunk space to bring along a fucking hand-carved marble chess board. What’s even fucking worse is that they’re </em><em>actually such jackasses that they actively use it instead of just keeping it around to look smarter than they actually are.</em>
</li>
<li><em>Jefferson keeps a yoga mat in the backseat so he can practice yoga whenever he wants. It’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Also, apparently, he can also only practice yoga while shirtless. I get it, jackass—even in the apocalypse, you’ve got a fucking six-pack. Apparently vanity endures in the apocalpyse.                    </em></li>
<li><em>Madison meditates. It’s not quite as stupid-looking as Jefferson’s yoga—barely. He doesn’t like to get interrupted. This morning, he picked up a softball bat, went outside, and bludgeoned an infected to death because—and I quote—it was disturbing his concentration. It was fucking terrifying. Badass too—not that I'd ever tell him. Who fucking knew someone that fucking unassuming could be so goddamn brutal? I’m never going to fucking step in the same room as him while he meditates again.</em></li>
<li><em>Apparently, the two of them think they’re world-class sommeliers. Anyone with half a fucking brain knows there’s only two kinds of wine: red and not-red. Today, they stopped at a wine store and talked about which bottles to take for <span class="u">three</span> <span class="u">goddamned</span> <span class="u">hours</span>. I tallied up the prices of everything they took—three thousand and seven hundred dollars for half a dozen bottles. Anyone who spends more than twenty dollars on a bottle of wine is a fucking tool. Jefferson fucking laughed at me when I told him that. Elitist prick.</em></li>
<li><em>I have to write this with one of Jefferson’s three-hundred-dollar fountain pens, and I fucking hate that it’s so much better than a Bic pen. He told me it would be when I asked him what kind of asshole owns a three-hundred-dollar pen, and I hate that he’s right because he's always wrong the rest of the time.</em></li>
<li><em>Madison apparently thinks it’s worth possibly attracting infected and risking death just so he can play Bach or Beethoven or whoever the fuck elitist opera-loving pricks like every time we’re in somewhere with a piano. I hate how fucking unfairly good he is, and I hate that he does it because it makes me think that Jefferson might actually be smarter than him.</em></li>
<li><em>They go the libraries—again, in the middle of the fucking apocalypse. And, yeah, this one isn’t actually bad because I run out of books to read all the damn time, but still. It's harder to complain about going to libraries than wine stores. Side note: I got a book on how to play chess today.</em></li>
<li><em>Also today, that fucking prick Jefferson found this list this morning. I only found out because he was fucking dolphin-laughing again, and I thought he was dying. That's what I get for trying to come fucking help him. I swear to God, I almost punched his fucking teeth in an hour ago when he did his stupid shit-eating grin at me while he was doing yoga. I’m going to learn how to fucking destroy him at chess. Maybe it’ll shut him the hell up.</em></li>
<li><em>I found out why Madison always fucking wears scarves.</em></li>
</ol><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton can’t believe how long it takes him to realize Jefferson and Madison are fucking. He can’t believe he only realizes it because Madison’s scarf comes loose during a tussle with infected, revealing a collage of purpled bruises and bite marks—and there's only two other people around that could've put them there, and it sure as fuck wasn't him.</p><p>Hamilton turns away well before Madison looks over self-consciously to see if he’s noticed.</p><p>He wonders how the hell it took him five weeks to figure it out.</p><p>Back before the world ended, rumors of Jefferson’s womanizing always floated though the tabloids, and Madison was supposedly up close and friendly with some pretty party-throwing socialite (Dorothy? Dolley?)—but Hamilton must’ve been deaf, dumb, and blind not to have seen through the smoke and mirrors. The continual co-authoring of bills, the hip-to-hip attachment, the constant eye-contact-only communication in the middle of the Congress floor: the two of them have been definitely fucking for a long, long time.</p><p>And in person?</p><p>Once the realization hits, it feels like he’s constantly being hit across the face with a frying pan that has <em>Jefferson and Madison fuck </em>branded onto the bottom. He mulls the revelation over, mulls over all their interactions in a new light, and it all falls into place. He sees the way they look at each other, the way they wring emotions out of each other Hamilton could never come close to evoking. They stand too close together, sit too close together, always seem on edge every time Hamilton unexpectedly slips into a room.</p><p>And then Hamilton creeps quietly past their room one morning to piss, hears them talking. When there's a house to sleep in, they sleep in the same room, for fuck's sake.</p><p>He reflects and thinks and finally decides that if Jefferson spent half the time reflecting on his politics as he spends staring at Madison’s ass, maybe he’d be someone Hamilton could get along with.</p><p>But as it is, Hamilton hates Jefferson, and Jefferson hates him. It’s a good arrangement, the closest thing Hamilton has had to normality in almost a year. At Columbia, he could channel his spare hatred at his half-friend, half-rival Aaron Burr. These days Hamilton doesn’t like to think of him much though, lest he be reminded that his old frenemy is probably dead too.</p><p>(He didn’t <em>really </em>hate Burr. He never did, and he never told him.)</p><p>Hamilton focuses his anger and hate onto Jefferson instead, refining it to a needle point as time goes on. Jefferson is easy to piss off and gives as good as he gets, baits Hamilton just as much as Hamilton baits him. In a twisted way, he must like having Hamilton around. Hamilton’s an easy emotional punching bag, someone to snap or snarl at that isn’t Madison.</p><p>Madison, Hamilton has realized, is probably the only damn human being other that Jefferson cares about other than himself.</p><p>And Madison, on the other hand, Hamilton only hates sometimes. He’s Jefferson’s antithesis in so many ways: reserved, unassuming, petite where Jefferson is too fucking loud, too fucking ostentatious, too fucking broad and too fucking willing to lord his height over Hamilton. But Madison's intelligence is soft-spoken instead of flamboyant, and his insults are disguised so cleverly that sometimes Hamilton can hardly tell when to take offense. Madison’s an asshole, sure, an outright elitist, but he's not as blatant about it as Jefferson. Sometimes Hamilton can even hold a conversation with him. Madison usually spends their talks looking at him with undisguised pity, sure, but Hamilton can ignore it for the sake of simply talking to someone with an ounce of intelligence—if he bites his tongue hard enough.</p><p>Jefferson and Madison are an odd pair, and yet... they make perfect sense. Both whip-smart elitist assholes, both old-money Virginians, both former vaguely slimy former Colony Representatives—probably both would-be Cabinet members of a new country, had the outbreak happened later.</p><p>And both gay or bisexual or some other variation of not straight<em>, </em>apparently.</p><p>(Seriously—how the hell did Hamilton not see it sooner?)</p><p>Hamilton chooses to find the humor in the fact that they continue to try to hide it from him, whether out of habit or secrecy or fuck knows what else.</p><p>He lets it drag on, amuses himself by counting the number of times one of them starts to make some vaguely sexual allusion only to cut off mid-sentence when they realize Hamilton is awake in the backseat. Madison, even with his apparently suppressed spectrum of human emotions, smiles when Jefferson cracks a joke no matter how unfunny it actually is—and given that it's Thomas Jefferson, they're usually not fucking funny. Hamilton gets the most pleasure out of seeing Jefferson getting caught ass-staring. The look Madison gives him could wither leaves off a tree.</p><p>(Jefferson is fucking whipped, Hamilton notes with no small amount of glee).</p><p>The novelty wears off after a couple weeks, though, and it becomes blatantly apparent over dinner one night that maybe he’s let his pretense of ignorance go on too long. It’s late October; the days are getting shorter and colder, and they’re sitting around a bay of hale in a shabby, freezing farmhouse where half the planks in the wall are mottled with holes. It's the best they could find for the night. It smells vaguely like shit, and it's not a metaphor.</p><p>“I’m just saying,” Jefferson says, a distinctly critical note in his voice, “that we should’ve stopped earlier. And then maybe we wouldn’t have had to stop at a condemned fucking farmhouse in the middle of goddamned nowhere.”</p><p>“You wanted to stop fifteen miles outside of <em>Norfolk</em>,” Madison shoots back. A rare suggestion of aggravation seeps into his expression—directed at Jefferson for once, not Hamilton. “Norfolk—the second biggest city in goddamned Virginia. I'd prefer to give privilege to cautiousness.”</p><p>Jefferson stabs his fork into his bowl, somehow making the act of eating mac-and-cheese violent. He chews violently, swallows violently. Both of them completely ignore Hamilton. He tells himself he doesn't care, that he doesn't want to be dragged into their relationship issues, but it pisses him off anyways.</p><p>“The average American couldn’t walk fifteen miles if they tried—let alone the average Virginian, let alone when there’s fucking viral fungus growing out of their face,” Jefferson argues. “But you know who likes abandoned farmhouses in middle of ass-fuck nowhere Virginia? Crazy fucking rednecks with shotguns!”</p><p>“You’re pro-gun,” Hamilton mildly points out. “Sounds like a self-made problem.”</p><p>Jefferson jerks to him, surprise at Hamilton’s continued existence fading almost instantly to irritation.</p><p>“First of all—this is Virginia. Only dumbasses that want to waste half a million dollars campaigning run here as pro-gun control. Second, if I didn’t have goddamned <em>armory</em> in my trunk, you’d be dead a dozen times over. Don’t pretend like you have the fucking high ground here unless you wanna return all the shit I've loaned you.” Immediately, Jefferson turns back to Madison, his irritation overflowing. “Third—<em>we’re going to get murdered in the middle of ass-fuck nowhere!"</em></p><p>"I made a judgment call. If you don't like it, then volunteer to drive when it's my turn."</p><p>"Jesus, if it's that or sleeping in Mary's manger, I'll gladly fuckin' drive."</p><p>Madison is dangerously close to shattering the glass in his grip, his expression outright murderous. He opens his mouth, gets out a growled <em>Thomas</em>, then cuts himself off with a look at Hamilton. Breathing unevenly, Madison leans back in his chair, tossing the crook of his elbow over his face.</p><p>Jefferson hesitates as he looks Madison over. Slowly, the anger melts off his face.</p><p>His hand twitches towards Madison—then stops. Jefferson doesn’t look at Hamilton, but Hamilton knows Jefferson’s acutely aware of his presence, measuring his actions carefully. Reluctantly, Jefferson’s hand falls back onto to the table. He returns to his bowl of mac-and-cheese—and for the first time since Hamilton’s been around him, Jefferson has the decency to look guilty.</p><p>It’s around then that Hamilton wonders if he’s maybe fucked up a little. He wonders a moment—wonders about the stress of constantly staying closeted for the sake of a political career in the South, wonders about the stress of thinking you’re finally free come the apocalypse—only to have to pick up the act again. There’s no real reason to bother, of course—it’s pretty obvious that Congress isn’t going to be in session anytime soon. It’s not like he’s got any tabloids to sell their secret to—and he wouldn't have anyways. They know he was in a relationship with another man, for fuck's sake.</p><p>Still.</p><p>Hamilton has to think he understands the stress better than most. Before the Henry Laurens fiasco, he and John wore the same shoes.</p><p>“Alright,” he loudly announces, standing up. “I’m going to go for a walk.” He glances down at the watch Jefferson reluctantly lent him—another fucking Rolex—then looks back up. “I’ll be back in two hours—maybe longer.” Jefferson and Madison exchange a look and another silent conversation. For the first time all evening, their expressions soften to a point where it looks like homicide's off the table. “Probably longer,” Hamilton mutters as he leaves.</p><p>It’s almost dusk outside. Despite how late in the year it is, it’s pleasantly warm out. Hamilton shucks off his expensive borrowed wool coat, wanders away from the farmhouse. About a hundred yards out, a cluster of trees shelters a small brook. Hamilton pulls off his shoes, wades into the water, walks downstream until he’s at the base of a small waterfall. Beyond it, the bottom drops out and the brook widens, creating a pleasant looking pool. He considers the water a second, then doubles back to the Escalade, pops open the hatch, digs through Jefferson’s shit until he finds what he’s looking for, then heads back to the pool.</p><p>The air is cool on his skin as he strips out of his clothes, folding them neatly by the bank. Carefully, he checks his gun, leaves it right on top of the stack, then sifts through Jefferson’s shit. It’s ridiculous how many bath products the man carries around—in the middle of the goddamned apocalypse, no less—but it gives Hamilton half a dozen choices for how he wants to smell. He settles on <em>Bourbon Sandalwood</em>—whatever the fuck that is—then wades into the creek.</p><p>The water is pleasantly chilly, and Hamilton reluctantly concedes that <em>Bourbon Sandalwood </em>is a much more pleasant smell than dried blood. It’s the deepest clean he’s had in a long time: he washes his hair three times, conditions it for the first time in months, then scrubs every inch of his skin until it’ll bleed if he scrubs any longer. It takes considerable doing to get the grime out from under his nails, but he even manages that. By the time he leaves the water, he actually feels human.</p><p>Like he might recognize his reflection if he saw it.</p><p>The sun has set, but the last dredges of daylight light the creek, and the moon hangs low in a clear sky overhead, so Hamilton spends another half hour washing his clothes. He ignores the sheer amount of dirt and blood that the water washes away, because it's too fucking much to think about. He misses his washing machine. His dryer.</p><p>As his clothes air dry, he sits on the bank. Another night, he might feel uneasy being outside alone past dark. Tonight, after so long spent in close quarters with two men that he doesn't even like, it feels peaceful.</p><p>Finally, when his watch ticks past nine, Hamilton gets dressed again, walks slowly back to the farmhouse. It’s quiet, but he approaches noisily to announce his presence.</p><p>“It’s me!” he calls as he knocks on the door.</p><p>Something falls over inside the farmhouse. There’s cursing.</p><p>The door swings open a few seconds later.</p><p>“Damn, announce it to the whole fucking countryside, why don’t you?” Jefferson scowls. "I was trying to get ready for bed, for fuck's sake."</p><p>He looks like he got caught outside in a fucking tornado. His hair is as wild as Hamilton’s ever seen it, half the buttons on his shirt are mismatched, and he’s wearing sweatpants instead of his slacks from earlier. Hamilton debates taking the high road for exactly half a second, which is just how long it takes for Jefferson to open his mouth again.</p><p>“Jesus—you actually smell like you’re not decomposing.”</p><p>“What an ironic coincidence,” Hamilton dryly tells him. “You do.”</p><p>Jefferson’s scowl deepens—then deepens even more when he sees his shower bag in Hamilton’s hands.</p><p>“Give me that,” he orders as swipes it out of Hamilton’s hands.</p><p>Hamilton bites down the all-too-familiar urge to punch him. Instead, he walks past Jefferson, then pauses, looking back and pointedly looking him up and down.</p><p>“You know, I think I saw a couple shotgun rednecks out there while I was washing up.” He flashes his teeth. “I hope you can out-limp them when they come knocking.”</p><p>It’s the closest Jefferson has ever been to strangling him, which is saying something. Hamilton brushes by him, glances around until he sees Madison, who's somehow as put together as ever. Impassively, Madison looks up from a cup of tea. His eyes slide past Hamilton to where Jefferson is presumably still fuming. He looks back to Hamilton, vague displeasure settling on his face: <em>what have you done now?</em> </p><p>"Stop wearing those," Hamilton tells him, jamming a finger towards Madison's permanent scarf. "I get it: Jefferson's a fucking neck-sucking parasite. Guess what? I don't fucking care. Just don't screw around anywhere where I'd overhear."</p><p>How Madison manages to cram so much irritation into little more than a sigh, Hamilton has no idea.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>And then Jefferson and Madison make no secret of their relationship. They’re decent enough not to get up to anything while Hamilton is around, and Hamilton values eating dinner in peace enough to give them time to themselves whenever it’s safe to wander around outside alone. Admittedly, none of them ever acknowledge that they're less than platonic in their affections. Hamilton alludes to it sometimes when he and Jefferson are insulting each other, but that’s the extent of it. Things change a little, but not much.</p><p>Madison stops wearing scarves.</p><p>He and Jefferson don’t pretend they sleep in separate rooms when they hunker down in a house for the night. Hamilton still goes to bed alone. Madison and Jefferson talk quietly on one side of their campfires, making no secret of the way their legs are pressed together. Hamilton still sits and eats alone on the other side of the fire. Madison and Jefferson still only really talk to one another in the car while Hamilton pretends to sleep. Hamilton still lies in the back with his eyes closed, tries to ignore their discussions.</p><p>Jefferson and Madison talk.</p><p>Past. Future. Where they’re going. What they’re doing.</p><p>Eating dinner one night, it occurs to Hamilton that yeah, they’re fucking, sure, but that's not it—not really. That's the least of what they are.</p><p>They’re in love.</p><p>Jefferson’s hand rests so naturally atop Madison’s that it looks like second nature. Madison is only half-paying attention to what Jefferson’s saying—Hamilton can tell; he’s wearing the signature pleasant yet vaguely vacant smile of a politician pretending to pay attention—but his eyes shine. Nothing other than Jefferson ever wrings that expression out of Madison.</p><p>It’s an obvious conclusion, yet it’s never occurred to Hamilton before.</p><p>Jefferson’s words fade out. Static fills his ears. His chest is an empty hole.</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t even like either of them.</p><p>But he’d give anything to be sitting where one of them is. To have someone lay his hand over his. To have someone look at him with undisguised adoration. To have someone hold him tightly after a run-in with the infected or to make him tea when a cough settles in his throat.</p><p>He thinks of Laurens. Thinks of what he had. What he doesn’t have now. </p><p>Fucking was fine. In love is something else. Everything falls into an entirely different context.</p><p>It’s silent—and suddenly, Hamilton realizes that while he’s been staring at their intertwined hands, they’ve been watching him. Jefferson has obviously said something, asked him something that he hasn’t heard, and Hamilton’s been sitting there, dumb. Hamilton looks between the two of them, notes the unease on their faces.</p><p>“I… uh…”</p><p>There’s a startling moment where he realizes he’s crying.</p><p>A deeply uncomfortable second passes before Hamilton abruptly stands, the clatter of his silverware deafening in the silence. He spins on his heels, retreats outside.</p><p>Hamilton entertains the idea of walking without looking back, cutting loose then and there, but reality settles in; his things are all still in the house. He didn’t even take his gun with him. All he has are the clothes on his back and the knife in his belt. He’s stupid, but he’s not <em>wander into the wilderness with nothing but a knife</em> dumb. He’s not actively trying to sabotage his own chances at survival. That's the whole reason he's around them in the first place.</p><p>Things are going well—he’s still alive. He’s eating more. Sleeping a little more. Not enough, but just enough more to make a little difference. He has more energy. He has people to talk to, even if they don't give a damn what he says. His chances of dying at the side of the road are much lower in Jefferson’s expensive, expensive Cadillac Escalade.</p><p>So instead of cutting loose, Hamilton sits down and cries with Laurens’ pictures clutched in his hand. When he’s done, he goes back and finishes his dinner.</p><p>Madison and Jefferson have already gone to bed.</p><p>They don’t talk about it.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Goddamn,” Jefferson wonders aloud, toeing the ground. “It’s fucking turf.”</p><p>Hamilton can’t fucking believe it. He is literally incapable of understanding that Thomas Jefferson is such a prick that he pulled them over solely to check out a golf course.</p><p>Jefferson examines the grass a moment longer, then turns to consider the clubhouse.</p><p>“You think they’ve got any clubs in there?” he asks Madison.</p><p>And that’s how Jefferson tops himself as the world’s greatest asshole. Not only does the man wear Louboutins after the world’s ended, not only does he pull over just to look at a freakishly well-manicured post-apocalyptic golf course, not only does he make them break into a clubhouse and kill half a dozen infected just to find a couple of sets of clubs, and not only does he search the bodies until he finds the keys to a working golf cart—but he also makes them play eighteen fucking holes of golf.</p><p>In the middle of the apocalypse.</p><p><em>Makes them play golf </em>might actually be too strong of a phrase because Madison doesn’t exactly seem unenthusiastic about idea—but Jefferson definitely <em>makes</em> Hamilton get out of the Escalade to cart them around.</p><p>“Maybe I’ll teach you how to drive her if you prove you can handle this,” Jefferson blatantly bribes him—and Hamilton’s clearly much more of a dumbass than he likes to think, because he falls for it.</p><p>He's also their security escort, apparently—while they take practice swings and line up shots, Hamilton scans the woods, keeps his pistol cocked and ready in his lap. Madison and Jefferson stick close to the cart, of course, keep their own guns at arm's reach tucked in their waistbands—but still. It’s the end of the world, and here they are golfing somewhere in the middle of suburban Maryland.</p><p>Hamilton bitches between every hole, but for once, Jefferson doesn’t even bother to defend himself.</p><p>“You’re damn fucking right it’s gross excess of the elite,” he cheerily agrees, whistling some jaunty fucking Southern tune.</p><p>It’s probably the nicest Jefferson has ever been to him—hell, probably the nicest Jefferson’s ever been to a human being other than Madison. It’s a little freaky. Jefferson’s all smiles, all laughter, all pleasant conversation. Hamilton could even mistake him for a human being instead of the fucking snake in the grass he actually is.</p><p>“I don’t know anything about golf, but I’m pretty sure you fucking suck at it,” Hamilton comments on the eighth hole after Jefferson sends two balls in a row sailing ten yards wide into the waist-high grass beside the fairway; apparently, the rough isn’t turf.</p><p>“Neither of us have played in more than a year,” Jefferson replies, unbothered by his baiting. “We’re both rusty.”</p><p>A moment later, Madison swings and drives his ball three hundred yards straight down the fairway.</p><p>“Bastard,” Jefferson swears—and Hamilton bursts into laughter and decides that maybe golfing isn’t the worst waste of time in the history of mankind after all.</p><p>And apparently if he chips away long enough, stays patient, he can still get under Jefferson's skin. It takes another few holes of poking and prodding, but at last Jefferson turns around after shanking another shot with the familiar scowl Hamilton sees so often.</p><p>“Come on—why don’t you give it a swing?”</p><p>“Oh, no. I don’t play golf,” Hamilton replies, shaking his head. He's never played sports at all, for the matter, but he leaves that unsaid. After all, Jefferson's probably played every rich person sport under the sun: field hockey, lacrosse, rugby, actual polo, whatever the fuck squash is. "I’m not a jackass.”</p><p>“And you expect to have a career in politics?” Jefferson still sometimes seems to hold onto the idea that things will one day go back to business as usual. It's the one illusion Hamilton lets him keep. “Besides, you could at least do better than I just did.” Jefferson pauses, arches his brows, poses a challenge. “Couldn’t you?”</p><p>Jefferson knows exactly how to capitalize on Hamilton’s weaknesses.</p><p>“I have to watch the cart,” Hamilton tries to resist.</p><p>Madison waves off the concern, pulling out his revolver.</p><p>“I’ll cover you.”</p><p>And so Hamilton has no choice but to defend his pride, even though it means he has to break his <em>never golfed </em>streak. He figures it doesn’t count, though, what with it being end times.</p><p>Jefferson smirks as he hands him his driver. With a scoff, Hamilton yanks it out of his hand. Then, awkwardly, he lines himself up to take a shot. He has no idea what he’s doing, no idea how far apart his feet should be or how he should hold the club. He just tries to imitate what he’s seen the two of them doing all day. Quickly, he yanks the club back, swings—and hacks into the ground a good foot before the tee, never even touching the ball.</p><p>“I… uh…” Hamilton’s face burns red. “That was a practice swing.”</p><p>His second attempt, the club swings six inches over the top of the ball.</p><p>Jefferson smirks.</p><p>“Another practice swing?” he mocks.</p><p>Hamilton chooses to be angry instead of embarrassed, stubbornly lines up for a third shot—and Jefferson sighs tolerantly, then slides behind up him, his front pressed flush against Hamilton’s back. His hands rest atop Hamilton’s waist, guiding him.</p><p>“Here,” he says, his breath hot in Hamilton’s ear. “Spread your legs a little wider—there. And relax your shoulders. You’re too stiff. Good. Now… just like that.”</p><p>He’s too close, too warm. Except infected trying to fucking kill him, no has touched him in months. Hamilton doesn’t know how to react. He doesn't want to be touched. He doesn't want to remember what basic human contact is like when it's one of so many things he can't have.</p><p>He wants to pull away. He’s distracted, dry-mouthed and red-faced, sure he’ll miss the shot when Jefferson finally steps away. He swings hastily, desperate to retreat back to the safety of the cart.</p><p>The ball sails straight forwards and drops in the middle of the fairway just shy of two hundred yards downfield.</p><p> Jefferson hums appreciatively. Faint approval flickers across his face—probably the warmest emotion Hamilton's ever going to wring out of him.</p><p>“Not terrible,” he allows Hamilton, letting him make his retreat to the cart.</p><p>It's fucking ridiculous, but they spend the rest of the week there. He could complain, he figures.</p><p>But Jefferson and Madison are enjoying themselves, and, fuck, it doesn't matter that Hamilton doesn't like them. They don't like him, but they let him stick around anyways. Golfing is absurd and ridiculous and lots of other unkind adjectives, but it makes them happy, and Hamilton lets them have it. He sucks it up. He shuts up.</p><p>He golfs a little more, picks up enough skills to hack out a not-humiliating one-thirteen score during an eighteen-hole round towards the end of the week. But eventually, the clubhouse’s pantry empties out, more infected start wandering around the course, and it’s time to move on. Jefferson marks the location down on their map, and then it vanishes in the rear-view mirror.</p><p>Jazz plays on the stereo. Jefferson hums along good-naturedly in the front seat. Madison’s shoulders are loose, his almost ever-present tension drained away. Occasionally, they smile at one another. Jefferson's hand rests on Madison's knee, and they speak in silent conversations in a language he doesn't know and will never know.</p><p>In the backseat, Hamilton sits alone.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>When he does sleep longer than a few hours—and that's a rare occasion—he sees Laurens.</p><p>Laurens holds his hand as they walk on a beach. He speaks, but Hamilton can never hear. He tries, tries to listen, tries to understand, tries to speak. He never can.</p><p>And he wakes up alone every time, the absence beside him louder than ever.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He has to keep moving. Keep surviving. Has to stay alive.</p><p>It's all he has left.</p><p>He does what he has to do to survive. He'll always do what he has to.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Look what I found,” Hamilton tells them one afternoon, grinning madly.</p><p>Jefferson glances over from the sofa he's splayed on, takes one look at Hamilton's smile, then groans.</p><p>“For my own sake, I hope it’s whiskey.”</p><p>“It’s not—it’s better,” Hamilton answers. He lifts up his find: a compound bow. “I found this in the garage—plus a few dozen arrows and a quiver. A little practice and I should be able to take down infected at-range. I figure it’ll save bullets. Plus it should be quiet. Avoid drawing any extra attention.”</p><p>“If you don’t shoot your damn eye out first.”</p><p>Madison is only slightly more encouraging, and even then, it’s with ulterior motives.</p><p>“It would be nice not to use as many bullets.” He glances at Jefferson, then Hamilton. “If you’d like to practice…”</p><p>Hamilton takes the hint. He practices outside—fails miserably. Day after day, he works at it, aiming at targets farther and farther away each time. Moving targets are much harder, alas—but it's not like there's much else to do.</p><p>His stubbornness serves him well. It takes a few weeks, but it’s worth it when he comes back one day with a rabbit in hand.</p><p>“Well, I’ll be damned. Look at our little Apollo in-training,” Jefferson says, arching his brows.</p><p>"Don't call me that."</p><p>"Mhm, sure. So you know how to clean that up? Cook it?”</p><p>“No,” Hamilton irritably answers. It was always Laurens that did that, and he's angry he never thought to learn, angry he never thought he'd <em>have </em>to learn. He scowls and spits, “Normal people didn’t kill animals for fun before the world ended.”</p><p>“Oh, I’m sorry," Jefferson drawls, unimpressed. "It sounds like you want dinner with a side of parasites.”</p><p>Hamilton shoves the rabbit into Jefferson’s hands, scowling.</p><p>"Just fucking clean it, then."</p><p>He's about to storm away, but Jefferson sighs, stops him, raises his hands, dials down the jackass for just a moment.</p><p>“Not any good to know how to hunt if you can't even prep the meat. Here,” Jefferson says, almost kindly. Hamilton blinks in surprise. “I’ll show you.”</p><p>Shockingly, it doesn’t even rank in the top ten grossest things Hamilton’s done in the past year. Probably not even in the top ten grossest things he’s done in the past month.</p><p>Jefferson shows him the maneuvers to clean the insides, teaches him which organs to save and which to discard. He quizzes him mercilessly, but Hamilton is too good of a student not to exceed his expectations, answer right every time. Skinning the rabbit is a little tougher. He makes a wrong move. His hand slips. The knife slices hot into his palm.</p><p>“Fuck,” Hamilton hisses, pressing his shirt sleeve into cut as blood wells out of the wound. “Fuck—I’m gonna get rabies.”</p><p>“Pretty sure you’re not,” Jefferson retorts, sliding behind Hamilton once the bleeding's staunched.</p><p>His hands move atop Hamilton’s, ready to guide him through the right technique. Memories flash up uninvited in Hamilton's mind from times when there was someone to hold his hand. For a second, Hamilton freezes.</p><p>“Don’t fucking touch me,” he snarls a second later, violently jerking away.</p><p>Confusion floods Jefferson’s face, but he raises his hands and backs away, vaguely pissed.</p><p>“Fine, fine—cut off your damn finger. Bleed all over the damn thing. Whatever. I don't give a shit," he says as he strolls away.</p><p>Hamilton cuts himself three more times, but at least Jefferson doesn’t see.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Something wakes him up right as he falls asleep late one night, and he thinks it's infected, starts to panic.</p><p>And then he listens harder and realizes just how fucking thin the house's walls are.</p><p><em>Jesus fucking Christ,</em> he thinks, embarrassment flooding his chest. Embarrassment, and something else that he refuses to indulge, refuses to think about.</p><p>Christ. He's not in the Colombia dorms anymore, and he certainly isn't still in college, much as he wishes he was. He shouldn't have to deal with this shit.</p><p>"Quiet the <em>fuck down!"</em> he at last shouts into the dark, his face red.</p><p>Madison refuses to make eye contact with him the next morning.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He'll do what it takes to stay alive.</p><p>It's all he can do.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Somewhere in Tennessee, they get cornered in the middle of a one-street town. They dash up a fire escape. Jefferson boosts them both up onto the roof of an old pharmacy—Madison first—then scrambles up after. They run. Hit the edge of a roof—but Madison never slows, launches across the gap to the next roof, and Hamilton follows in hot pursuit.</p><p>The shrieks of the infected are close, so close, so fucking close. Hamilton sprints, refuses to look back, feels his heart about to burst in his chest. </p><p>
  <em>Stay alive. Stay alive. Stay alive.</em>
</p><p>But then there’s a <em>pop </em>and an ear-splitting shriek behind him—a human shriek—and he looks back. He's just in time to see Jefferson fall hard, terrified, clutching at his ankle.</p><p><em>“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,”</em> Jefferson cries. "Jemmy!"</p><p>Not good. Bad timing, bad luck, bad situation.</p><p>“Hamilton!” Madison yells, doubling back at light speed. “Cover us!”</p><p>Hamilton looks back at the pack of infected racing towards them, closing the gap—<em>ten, fifteen, twenty?</em></p><p>He has one full clip, plus five spare bullets. Madison is hauling an injured Jefferson over his shoulder. He’s impressively strong, impressively fast—not fast enough. They’re outnumbered. Out-manned.</p><p>Hamilton can outmaneuver the infected, save his bullets, but he can’t do it with Madison and Jefferson dragging ass behind him. But Madison will never leave Jefferson; Jefferson’s dead weight. Jefferson’s going to drag them all down. Jefferson's going to get them all killed.</p><p>There’s a choice to make. It’s a numbers game—Hamilton tells it to himself again and again, repeats it like a mantra as he raises his gun.</p><p>He’s run with the two of them long enough. It’s time to cut loose.</p><p>He has to stay alive. It's all there's left for him to do.</p><p>It all happens in the span of a second.</p><p>Hamilton’s gun levels at Madison: one last act of kindness, of mercy.</p><p>
  <em>At least don’t let them get torn apart.</em>
</p><p>Madison’s eyes meet his for a fraction of a second.</p><p>And Hamilton’s hand jerks at the last possible second. He aims over their heads, starts shooting at the infected leaping across the rooftop.</p><p>
  <em>Headshot. Headshot. Hit to the neck.</em>
</p><p>Crunching and shrieks fill the air—the infected that make the jump aren’t having much more luck landing than Jefferson. Hamilton ignores the hobbled, broken-legged ones, aims at the ones still tearing forwards. Some are so close to Madison, barely an arm's reach away—</p><p>
  <em>Headshot. Headshot. Headshot. Reload.</em>
</p><p>Madison tears past him to the edge of the roof, throws Jefferson against the wall, joins Hamilton's side with his revolver raised. The infected come and come and come.</p><p>
  <em>Headshot. Headshot. Miss. Shoulder. Headshot.</em>
</p><p>Hamilton’s gun clicks empty. The infected are rushing him, and he's closer than Madison.</p><p>“I’m out!” he shouts, drawing his knife—<em>you </em><em>should’ve run.</em></p><p>Madison swings, shoots one of them five feet away from Hamilton. Hamilton knifes another, shoves it away, knifes a third. Madison cuts down the rest.</p><p>“Hamilton!” Jefferson shouts.</p><p>He turns just in time to catch Jefferson’s shotgun as it arcs through the air. Whirling, he starts shooting just as Madison has to reload.</p><p>
  <em>Headshot. </em>
</p><p>It kicks back so hard it nearly falls out of his hands and knocks him on his ass. It’s a miracle he doesn’t drop it.</p><p><em>Headshot. Headshot. </em>Madison starts shooting. A third gun fires from behind them. <em>Headshot</em>.</p><p>In another ten seconds, it’s over. Piles of infected litter the ground in front of them. A few never managed to get back up after the jump—he and Madison draw their knives and deal with them swiftly. No sooner is the last one dead than does Madison rush back across the roof to tend to Jefferson.</p><p>"Thomas," he gets out, voice terrified, cracked in a dozen different way. "Thomas, Christ, Thomas—"</p><p>"I'm here, baby, it's alright, shh, I'm here, I'm here—"</p><p>It hurts too much to listen. Hamilton turns to search the bodies. Only then does he finally notice how bad his hands are shaking. He can't keep them still, even as he tries to keep them busy. The corpses are mostly worthless. Wallets, cash, phones: all useless to him now. He keeps all the keys for now, at least—if they find them cars and houses are much more likely to have things of interest. One body has a nice pair of sunglasses that he tucks away. A few have lighters and cigarettes. He stashes those too. He finds a multitool in the pocket of something that used to be man and tries to open the blade; his shaking hands mean he ends up slicing a finger instead.</p><p>“Fuck,” he gasps, drawing Madison’s attention away from his tending.</p><p>Madison watches him from across the rooftop a moment, then murmurs something to Jefferson that Hamilton can’t quite catch. Madison kisses him, runs reverent hands over his face. Jefferson puts his hand over one of Madison's, brings Madison's knuckles to his lips. Holds them there a long time before he at last lets go. And only then Madison stands, walks over to join Hamilton.</p><p>“You’re bleeding,” he notes.</p><p>The indifference in Madison's voice sounds a little shaky, but Hamilton's still visibly shaking. He can't stop. It's unfair Madison can put himself back together so well. It's unfair that he has someone else to help him do it.</p><p>“Thanks for noticing,” Hamilton snaps.</p><p>Madison pulls a handkerchief from his pocket—a fucking handkerchief, monogrammed and all—then dabs mildly at Hamilton’s cut. The tenderness, limited as it is, shocks him into stillness. He watches on silently as Madison applies pressure to staunch the bleeding. Neither of them make eye contact as he does, and it's a long minute before he at last pulls away.</p><p>“Thank you,” Hamilton finally gets out, careful, quiet, acutely aware of the terse air between them.</p><p>Silence hangs between them for a moment. Madison leans over the infected's body as if inspecting it: Hamilton can tell it’s only a pretense put on for Jefferson’s sake. To be sure, Madison’s eyes lift after a second, suddenly growing dark and cold as they meet his.</p><p><em>He saw, </em>Hamilton realizes before Madison even gets out the accusation.</p><p>“You thought about shooting us."</p><p>“That’s not...” Hamilton begins to protest, but Madison silences him with a look.</p><p>Everything is still. The silence is profound. Finally, Madison relents, takes the conversation in a different direction so suddenly that Hamilton's sure it was done just to throw him off balance.</p><p>“Thomas’s ankle is badly sprained—perhaps broken.”</p><p>“How long’s it going to take to heal?” he asks, uncertain.</p><p>“Optimistically speaking, a week. Likely longer.”</p><p>Shit luck again—but <em>now</em> it’s time for Hamilton to cut loose. Not letting two people that’ve been helpful and vaguely kind die violently in front of him is one thing. Hanging around with someone badly hurt and half-immobilized is another. They may as well start ringing the dinner bells for every infected in a thirty-mile radius. Sure, the three of them pulled through this horde, but how long before they get cornered again? What’ll happen if Jefferson’s ankle is broken, not sprained? What if he’s too hurt to walk for weeks—or months—instead of days?</p><p>Hamilton’s own humanity surprised him here, but even he has to have his limits. He has to survive. He isn’t going to put his neck on the line long-term for somebody that doesn’t give half a shit about him.</p><p>“Well, then it’s a good thing the town’s mostly clear now, huh?” he tries to joke.</p><p>“If it isn’t, Thomas will be a liability,” Madison tells him, serious. A lingering pause. “There may be times when I’m a liability. My immune system isn’t exactly the most well constituted.”  Dark eyes lock onto him. “Of course, there may be times when <em>you’re </em>a liability. You're only human, Hamilton.”</p><p>Hamilton isn’t sure where this speech is going, but he feels vaguely uneasy.</p><p>“As much as I would like to pretend otherwise, there may be times when Thomas and I aren’t enough to look after one another,” Madison admits, even though it seems physically prick his pride to say so. “Having a third person around then would be valuable—but only if you’re fully committed.” Madison talks like a politician: poised, collected, mild. He makes deals like the fucking Devil. “Perhaps we can come to a compromise: if you choose to stay, if you agree to look after us when we’re injured or unwell or in danger, then we’ll do the same for you. Consider it a partnership. An exchange of mutual trust.”</p><p>“I don’t need either of you,” Hamilton objects, defensiveness swelling in his chest. “I can take care of myself.”</p><p>“And so can we—until one of us can’t walk.” Madison silences him with a raised hand. “If you choose to walk away now, I won’t hold it against you. I’ll give you a cut of our food, supplies, another gun. Regardless of what you were <em>thinking</em> of doing, you... saved us. I..." His gaze flickers to Jefferson, worry mixing with fear and too much love for any one man to have. And like that, his eyes go flat when they shift back to him. "I’m obligated to return the favor.”</p><p>Madison’s eyes bore into him. With nowhere to escape to, Hamilton looks away.</p><p>“But if you choose to stay, you’d damned well better be in it for the long haul. If anything happens because you hesitated or, God forbid, you <em>run</em>.<em>” </em>His voice blazes. “Then I’ll have nothing better to do with myself other than to track you down. And God help us both, trust me when I say you’d rather that the infected get to you first.”</p><p>Hamilton thinks of Madison bludgeoning infected to death with a bat for the meager crime of interrupting his morning meditation. He thinks of Madison shooting a dozen infected with perfect aim, all without batting an eye. He thinks of Madison: understated, unassuming, all grace until he’s angry.</p><p>Madison’s not bluffing.</p><p>“Think it over.” He stands. “Finish checking these bodies. I’m going to take Thomas down into the pharmacy to see if I can find anything to heal his ankle.”</p><p>“Madison,” Hamilton blurts out before he can go.</p><p>He waits until the man turns to him. The words Hamilton wants don’t come—a rare occasion—but Madison knows what he’s trying to say. The man’s face smooths over into clean aloofness, blank formality descending over him like a cloak.</p><p>“I understand,” Madison says, his voice cold instead of cool. “I’ll put your things together tonight.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They scrounge up a few single-use ice packs in the pharmacy. No painkillers, but Madison and Jefferson break into the good stuff stashed in the Escalade. Jefferson pops three Oxys, bitching and moaning the entire time. Usually, Hamilton would bitch right back, call him out for being overdramatic, but one look at Jefferson’s violently purple, violently swollen ankle shuts him up. For once, he doesn’t think Jefferson’s exaggerating.</p><p>Madison’s right—it might be a break, not a sprain. All the more reason for him to split.</p><p>They find a tiny one-story house half a mile outside town. He and Madison check it out, clear the living room of two infected, then carry a half-unconscious Jefferson inside and onto a bed. The painkillers have made him drowsy, less of an asshole than usual. He even mutters a warm <em>goodnight </em>to Hamilton when they leave the room.</p><p>Clearly Madison hasn't told him yet about how Hamilton originally planned to handle the roof.</p><p>Madison closes the bedroom door, retreats to the car, then comes back inside with a stuffed backpack. With a pointed look, he hands it to Hamilton.</p><p>“Goodnight, Hamilton,” he says. Hamilton pauses, weighing what to say. A dozen unspoken statements hang in the air. Neither of them knows which to say, which to left unsaid forever. Finally, Madison nods, settles on a cool, civil, “Good luck. For whatever it might be worth to you...”</p><p>But he trails off and seems to think better of whatever he was on the brink of saying.</p><p>"Good luck, Hamilton," Madison repeats, shaking his head. "I hope you find whatever you're looking for."</p><p>And with that, Madison joins Jefferson.</p><p>A chapter of Hamilton’s life closes with the bedroom door.</p><p>He wanders into the living room. Heavily, he falls onto the couch, and his eyes gradually drift to the brown-black bloodstains left from killing the two infected.</p><p>Hamilton thinks.</p><p>He and Jefferson are just as likely to shoot each other than to band together to fend off an infected attack. He hates Jefferson; Jefferson hates him. They’ll never get along—let alone be friends. But, reluctantly, Hamilton has to admit that Jefferson is a fucking force to be reckoned with when he has his sawed-off shotgun: loud, vicious, deadly.</p><p>Madison, on the other hand, Hamilton could maybe learn to peacefully coexist with. They at least have a little in common, whereas about the only thing he and Jefferson agree on is that the colonies should’ve broken away three centuries ago. When it comes to taking out infected, he and Madison make a good team—stealthy, fast, efficient.</p><p>But Madison and Jefferson make an even better team. The two fight together like fucking psychics. Entire conversations happen with mere nods and minute expressions. Not even he and Laurens could’ve held a candle to two of them together—though, of course, that’s partly because Hamilton never so much as held a gun until last winter.</p><p>(Sometimes he can still feel Laurens’ hands over his, guiding his aim. Hear the instructions murmured into his ear. The praise when he finds his target.)</p><p>Point is: at the end of the day, Hamilton is the third wheel in every possible way.</p><p>Things are going to get desperate with Jefferson’s ankle. Things are going to get even more desperate as winter sets in, as the world continues to descend into depravity and chaos and fascism in the few places with a government left to speak of. The holdout cities on the east coast, the few still under British control, the few free safe cities like Charleston—they'll all fall somehow one way or another. There are going to be less supplies, more brigades of Redcoats and bandits to defend against, more infected hordes as more people get exposed to the fungus. It’s going to get worse than it is now, and Hamilton's past believing it'll ever get better.</p><p>And when the time comes, the single most desperate moment of their lives, Jefferson and Madison will choose to save each other. Not him.</p><p>Someday, there’s going to be two soldiers or two infected or two bandits, but only one bullet in a chamber. Hamilton wouldn’t blame them—not really. If things were different, he’d choose Laurens first too. But he’s gotten as much from them as he can get. It’s time to move on.</p><p>Hamilton opens the pack Madison gave him to take stock. It’s generous—canned food, a first-aid kit, some survival gear, a few boxes of ammo, a snub-nosed revolver—even a box of the instant coffee packs that he’s constantly complaining taste like shit, even though he’d never survive at all without some kind of caffeine.</p><p>It’s more than enough to get him somewhere.</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t know where he’s going. There’s just as little worth going to as there was when he first joined up with the two of them. He won’t go to one of the holdout cities after Charleston. He won’t go back to New York or to South Carolina. He’ll just go somewhere—wherever the road takes him.</p><p>Hamilton zips up the pack. He stands, slinging it over his shoulders to join his other pack. He heads towards the door, out into the night. Down the driveway, past the Escalade, onto the dirt road stretching out West. West sounds good—it’s a good a place to go as any.</p><p>He walks. Rocks pierce through his worn shoe soles and stab into his feet, but he ignores them. Hamilton leaves Madison and Jefferson behind him, and he lets himself be alone again.</p><p>Five miles down the road, Hamilton nearly breaks his neck.</p><p>He sprawls forward, lands hard in the dirt, cuts his hands open on gravel and dirt. Angrily, he groans, pushes up into a sit, weighing if it’s worth the bullet it’d take to shoot the rock he's tripped over out of frustration when the rock <em>moves.</em></p><p>Hamilton almost loses his goddamned mind, afraid that he’s tripped over some goddamned decapitated infected skull. His gun is half-raised when the rock blinks at him, slow and deliberate. Its neck twists to turn at him. It watches him, and as inhuman as it is, it still manages to look annoyed.</p><p>It’s a fucking turtle.</p><p>And like that, Hamilton's dragged back to the past, to his first fucking date at the New York Aquarium, to Laurens laughing and pointing out Loggerheads and Leatherbacks and Hawksbills. <em>"</em><em>I had turtle phase when I was younger,"</em> Laurens' voice echoes in his mind, and even though it's been so long, it sounds so fucking real that Hamilton can barely breathe.<em> "Didn't end up being a marine biologist, but I figured it'd come in handy someday." </em>And Hamilton thinks of the Spring Break he brought Laurens to Florida to watch Loggerheads hatch, of the way Laurens looked at him with his face lit up by moonlight. <em>"I love you," </em>he hears Laurens tell him, but it's only a memory.</p><p>Between the tears that threaten to well up in his eyes at the memories, Hamilton almost laughs at the absurdity of it all. It's so fucking stupid. It's all so fucking stupid, and nothing makes sense, and why does he even bother? Why the fuck does he even bother?</p><p>Near hysterical, Hamilton sits back on the gravel and watches the stupid fucking turtle.</p><p>It watches back, as if asking him what the hell he’s doing walking alone down a dirt road in the middle of the goddamned night. Does he <em>want </em>to die like a dumbass? Déjà vu hits him.</p><p>It takes a moment to realize that this was almost exactly how he ended up going with Jefferson and Madison in the first place.</p><p>Hamilton spends a long few minutes sitting there. He thinks of Laurens, of how he's supposed to survive, of how it's a numbers game, always a numbers game.</p><p>Finally, he stands, then keeps walking—this time, back towards the house.</p><p>The sun is half-risen by the time he makes it back. The Escalade is still in the driveway, but the house looks silent. Hamilton approaches quietly, swinging the door open as silently as he can. Murmurs come from the kitchen, letting Hamilton know that they’re already up. Still, he doesn’t turn back. Fighting with himself, he enters the kitchen.</p><p>Madison and Jefferson’s guns are on him in a second, but when they see who it is, blatant surprise splashes across their faces: déjà vu—again. Madison is the first to recover, lowering his gun. He doesn't quite seem to believe it, but he smooths over his disbelief, sits back down, tells him,</p><p>“We made coffee.”</p><p>Enough for three, Hamilton notes. Three mugs on the table.</p><p>His throat dries.</p><p>“Where the hell have you been?” Jefferson drawls, slurring slightly from the painkillers.</p><p>“I was looking for water,” Hamilton replies, not meeting their eyes. He shrugs off his packs, beelines towards the disgusting, gritty, instant coffee mixture. “Some of us need to sustain ourselves on something other than bullshit.”</p><p>“I pity those people,” Jefferson casually drawls after he and Madison exchange a long look.</p><p>And despite himself, Jefferson actually smiles at Hamilton, all shiny white teeth. It’s the painkillers, Hamilton decides as he pours himself a mug of coffee.</p><p>It doesn't taste like shit this morning.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Once Jefferson's ankle heals, he finally teaches Hamilton how to drive.</p><p>Hamilton takes over driving at night, lets the two of them sleep huddled together in the backseat. When the car is quiet and the open road is all that’s in front of him, sometimes the world doesn’t seem awful.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They wake up one night to half a dozen infected pounding on the doors of the Escalade.</p><p>It’s a terrifying first for Hamilton, but Jefferson and Madison only greet the threat with irritated, tired sighs. Sleepily, they untangle their limbs from one another, then reach for their guns. Hamilton’s hands shake so badly from being woken to the sight of an infected screaming a foot away from his face that he can hardly lift his pistol. The noise is strangely muted inside the car, but he can see into the infected’s mouth, see the decay, the fungus growing out of its face.</p><p>“Calm down,” Jefferson drawls when he takes note of Hamilton’s hands. “The glass’s bulletproof, and the body’s reinforced. Car’s built to stand up to a grenade—one of the perks of being a politician.”</p><p>“Well, it’s not a fucking grenade—it’s an ambush. How the hell are we supposed to get out? We're trapped.”</p><p>“We can either pop up through the sunroof and shoot them if we don’t mind using the bullets, or I can run over any in the way. ‘s awful for the alignment, though,” Madison answers, his voice a low rumble from sleep. He runs a hand over his face, irritable. Madison hates being woken up unceremoniously almost as much as he hates being disturbed while he’s meditating, Hamilton has learned. “Or we could go the hell back to bed.”</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t want to waste bullets, but he also very much doesn’t want the Escalade to break down in the middle of an apocalypse because they ran over too many infected.</p><p>“Hold on,” Hamilton mutters, sitting up and leaning over the backseat to rummage through the trunk.</p><p>He comes up victorious a few moments later with his compound bow and quiver.</p><p>“Really?” Jefferson asks. “Shooting one damn rabbit is a whole different ballpark, Hamilton.”</p><p>He doesn’t dignify Jefferson with a reply, just stands and waits for Madison to peel back the sunroof. He pops through into the cold night air—and Jefferson joins him, his shotgun in hand. It’s a little terrifying to see the infected swarming the sides of the car, their arms swiping a mere foot away from his legs—but reassuringly, none of them seem to have the coordination or intelligence to actually climb onto the roof. Hamilton thanks whatever god there is for that mercy.</p><p>“Don’t miss,” Jefferson warns him, aiming at the nearest infected.</p><p>Hamilton scowls, loads the bow—delivers an arrow straight into the skull of the nearest infected. At this range, aiming is easy. Reloading between each shot is admittedly slower than a gun, a few seconds he can’t spare in a close-range fight—but each arrow flies straight and almost silent into the infecteds’ skulls. Jefferson’s brows gradually lift in appreciation.</p><p>Within a couple minutes, the last of the infected is dead. All’s silent again.</p><p>“Cover me,” Hamilton tells Jefferson as he lifts himself out of the car and drops to the ground.</p><p>Hamilton recovers his arrows, searches the bodies—nothing of any real interest, save for a couple lighters. He cleans the viscera off the arrowheads, then returns to the car.</p><p>“Well-done,” Madison comments, eyeing Hamilton’s bow. “I might have to look for one of those myself.”</p><p>From Madison, it’s pretty high fucking praise.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>One evening, Jefferson drops a pair of shoes into Hamilton’s lap.</p><p>“Madison got these for you while he was out.” He motions to Hamilton’s feet. “He said yours are falling apart so damn bad it’s a miracle you haven’t gotten tetanus.”</p><p>Hamilton almost argues—then remembers that the sole of his right show is only holding on through sheer willpower and duct-tape. His toes have been sticking out of his left shoe since August.</p><p>Hamilton tries them on. They’re his size, fit well. It’s been so long since he’s had nice ones that it’s a surprise not to feel like his toes are only a few minutes away from frostbite. Jefferson watches, then nods in satisfaction before going to wash clothes.</p><p>“Thanks for the shoes,” Hamilton tells Madison later that evening while the two of them clean their guns.</p><p>Madison glances over to him, bemusement lifting his brows.</p><p>“What shoes?”</p><p>"The ones Jefferson gave to me."</p><p>"Ah," Madison replies. "I'm glad he was able to find a suitable pair. He's been worrying over your old ones for weeks."</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>In mid-December, the first frost glazes the ground.</p><p>As he eyes the whitened grass, Hamilton wonders if it’s time for him to split. It’s instinct—habit more than anything else. He and Laurens barely made it through the first end-of-the-world winter. Food is harder to come by in winter. People get more desperate in winter. And even though they don’t come across people very often these days, every encounter is a chance for things to go south.</p><p>But Hamilton is—he’s staying. For now.</p><p>He knows it’s probably a mistake, knows it’s only going to hurt him in the end. But he stays.</p><p>“Should we head farther south?” Jefferson asks—and perhaps for the first time, it seems like the question is directed at Hamilton just as much as Madison. “The Escalade’s got four-wheel drive, but I don’t know how much I want to risk our luck with outrunning infected in the snow.”</p><p>“What did you do last winter?”</p><p>“Mm. We found a cabin in deep Georgia. Stayed there January through March—but we were better stocked then. Supplies were a lot easier to come by even just a year ago,” Madison answers. “And you?”</p><p>“We were—” Hamilton wavers. There was still a <em>we </em>back then. “We were in Charleston.”</p><p>The air suddenly feels very still. Hamilton has never told them about what happened there, but they clearly already know.</p><p>“Oh,” Jefferson finally says, soft, sympathetic, pitying.</p><p>Hamilton’s stomach lurches.</p><p>“It was a fucking slaughterhouse,” he says, quiet. “I started going north after that. Kept moving. You found me while I was in Virginia—and here we are, I guess.”</p><p>“Then what do we do? Find somewhere to stay for the winter, or stay on the road?”</p><p>The question weighs on them all the way down into Kentucky.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>In Kentucky, their luck runs out.</p><p>They get split up—Jefferson goes right, Madison and Hamilton go left.</p><p>They end up in a department store. Hamilton’s gun misfires, and Madison’s revolver runs empty. They get cornered in the men’s department, outnumbered ten, twelve, fifteen to two. It’s desperate. Violent swinging, frantic stabbing. Screaming. Black blood spatters their faces, soaks their hands.</p><p>Hamilton yanks his knife out of a skull, turns to see Madison swarmed.</p><p>It’s a split-second.</p><p>
  <em>Him or you.</em>
</p><p>But Hamilton thinks of Madison’s threat, knows Jefferson will make good on it too, thinks of Laurens and of everyone waiting for him on the other side. But then he thinks of surviving, of the old, deep-rooted habit he has to live on even when there’s nothing left to live for.</p><p>Pure habit readies him to run.</p><p>He looks at Madison one last time—and that’s his mistake.</p><p>For the first time since Hamilton has known him, Madison looks afraid. Not afraid—terrified. His eyes are wide, panicked, his mouth twisted into a horrified grimace. He’s frightened. Cornered.</p><p>Hamilton isn’t.</p><p>With a shout, Hamilton charges. He shoulder-checks the infected closest to him, grabs another as he goes down. With a squelch, his knife runs through the first infected’s eye. A second goes down right after, but his blade catches when tries to pull it away. He barely yanks it out in time to stop a third, stabs: his knife makes a home in its neck.</p><p>The next infected's teeth make their home in his.</p><p>Hamilton's mouth opens in silent surprise.</p><p>The infected yanks away hard, ripping flesh. Muscle. Bone’s exposed. Hamilton’s whole world goes white-hot. His neck's soaked in blood in a second. Dazed, his eyes flicker up. Madison looks on, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, horrified.</p><p>“Madison,” Hamilton tries to say, but the sound doesn't make it past his lips.</p><p>And then Madison kicks the infected off of him, stomps its head until pulpy brain leaks out. Hamilton feels dizzy. His whole front is bloody now. Madison tears through the last few infected, furious, screaming swears and bloody murder. In a fucked-up way, it’s beautiful. Waltz-like. Piano chords play somewhere in the back of his mind.</p><p>Hamilton’s hand reaches up, touches his neck. Slowly, he stands—then collapses.</p><p>“You motherfucker,” Madison snarls, suddenly at his side. His cool façade is shattered, anger plain in his eyes, swears falling freely from his mouth. “You stupid, <em>stupid</em> motherfucker.”</p><p>He pulls out a handkerchief—<em>seriously, </em>Hamilton thinks, <em>what is it with politicians and their fucking handkerchiefs? </em>It hurts like a bitch when he seals it to Hamilton’s neck, desperately trying to staunch the bleeding. It’s useless, a band-aid over a fucking bullet wound. Hamilton says nothing.</p><p>Distantly, more shrieks sound through the store.</p><p>“We need to go,” Madison tells him. Hamilton thinks of the first outbreak, thinks of how Laurens once told him the same thing. Laurens seems closer than ever. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”</p><p>With surprising strength, Madison scoops Hamilton into his arms. He stops just long enough to collect their dropped guns, then breaks into a sprint. Hamilton falls unconscious. When he comes to, it’s all white. So white, for a moment, he thinks he’s already dead.</p><p>Then the pain of his mauled neck sets in again, dissipating the fantasy. He cries out, trying to lift a hand to his neck to do—<em>something. </em>His hands catch, though, and he looks up to find his wrists bound to bedposts by thick rope. His wrists sting brutally, already rubbed raw, but it’s background noise compared to the agony in his neck. Madison suddenly bursts into the room, looking alarmed. He relaxes only slightly when he sees Hamilton, then is at his side in a second, clamping a hand over his mouth.</p><p>“Shh—there’s a hundred of them outside looking for us. Don’t make a sound,” he urgently explains, voice hushed.  Slowly, he lifts his hand. He repeats, “Don’t make a sound.”</p><p>“Madison.” Hamilton swallows. “What are you doing?”</p><p>Madison’s eyes flash with anger.</p><p>“What am <em>I </em>doing?”</p><p>“Why am I not dead? You know what happens when you get bit—why am I not dead?”</p><p>“Because I’m <em>waiting</em> for you to die! Christ, Hamilton, you <em>would </em>get bit the one damn time when I have no ammo, no knife, and a hundred damn infected swarming outside.” His hands are balled into fists at his side. “We’re trapped. I don’t know where Jefferson is. I can’t even kill you. I don’t have—"</p><p>“You have hands, don’t you?” Hamilton almost yells, his volume tempered only by the infected outside. “Bash my fucking head in. Use the fucking lamp if you have to. I’m not—fuck. I’m alive now—but for how long? A few days if I’m lucky? Probably less since I’m fucking hemorrhaging out of my goddamn neck. Just—God, Madison—<em>please. </em>Don’t leave me like this. Don’t do that to me—you promised, Madison. You <em>promised</em> to take care of me. Please.”</p><p>Hamilton’s voice cracks on the last sentence, his chest heaving. Madison turns away and sighs, his face in his hands. The sound is distinctly shuddery.</p><p>“Hamilton,” he says a moment later, his voice unexpectedly steady. “I’m not going to leave you. I’ll kill you—have my word. But let me wait until you’ve turned. Please. Allow me that.”</p><p>Hamilton wants to protest, order that Madison bite the bullet—but seeing him hunched over, his anger melted away, Madison looks small. Defeated. As close to breaking down as Hamilton has ever seen him. Hamilton’s throat dries up. He doesn’t like Madison—but he doesn’t really hate him anymore either. He doesn’t want Madison to—if he could, Hamilton would reach out, offer a hand: an olive branch. So close to death, it wouldn’t mean anything to him—but to Madison?</p><p>“Okay,” Hamilton agrees, his voice thick. “Just—please. Don’t let me be one of them.”</p><p>Madison’s hands fall away from his face. He turns, his face set in rickety lines.</p><p>“Thank you.” He closes his eyes. “Hamilton... for what it's worth, I’m sorry.”</p><p>Hamilton can feel the infection setting in. Already, he feels sticky-hot. His feet and fingers feel fuzzy, staticky like the TV turned to a dead channel. His chest feels stuffed. His lungs overfull like he’s taken a breath underwater. If Madison won’t kill him, at least the fever will kill him fast.</p><p>There’s a long, long silence. Minutes pass—maybe hours. Hamilton loses track quick.</p><p>Outside, the infected shriek.</p><p>“Jefferson’s fine,” Hamilton reassures him, growing distant.</p><p>Madison’s laugh is brittle.</p><p>“How would you know?”</p><p>“You were still alive the last time he saw you,” he replies, his eyes drifting shut. “And he’s a fucking jackass, but he’s not a complete dumbass. He’ll be fine.”</p><p>Fever takes him.</p><p>Bright colors. Hallucinations. Cold hands clamp over his mouth, silencing his screams. Choking him. He sees his mother, sees her smile, sees her eyes. Sees her face turn grey as fever desiccates her to ash and bone.  He sees Laurens, watches him walk away into the dark, into waiting infected arms. Laurens smiles at him as they eat him alive, pull him apart piece by piece. Hamilton walks through an abandoned Columbia, sees Hercules and Burr and the Schuylers approach him with ragged teeth and glazed eyes. He watches them claw out his innards, hears Laurens’ laugh. Hamilton screams. The hand choking him presses down harder, blocks out the air.</p><p>The fever eases.</p><p>He gasps awake, realizes the cold hand belongs to Madison. Dizzily, he blinks up. It’s dark outside. Now his wrists sting viciously—the ropes binding them are stained red. Everything inside him feels wrong, like someone’s replaced all his insides while he slept. Sweat sticks to him, and a sickly-sweet smell fills the room. His neck hurts. He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know why he’s there. He doesn’t know why he feels so wrong—so fucked. Everything is—wrong.</p><p>“Madison?” he weakly asks, the name muffled by the man’s hand. “Water…?”</p><p>Hamilton’s tongue is so thick in his mouth it makes it hard to swallow without choking, but the water hits his throat like rain in the desert. Madison only pulls the bottle away when it’s empty, his face twisted with regret.</p><p>“That’s all there is.”</p><p>It costs Hamilton just to nod in acknowledgment. He’s exhausted, every muscle in his body aching like he’s finished a marathon. The water clears his head a little, just enough for him to remember what’s wrong. But before he can do anything else, he’s gone.</p><p>This time, he’s the monster.</p><p>Laurens screams.</p><p>Hamilton comes up gasping, eyes wild, chest heaving.</p><p>“Shh,” Madison hushes him, his eyes panicked. He’s looking at the window. “You’re alright—it’s alright.”</p><p>“I should’ve—I should be dead already,” Hamilton wheezes. “I should’ve—it should’ve been me.”</p><p>He goes back under.</p><p>He goes to the hurricane. To the yellow skies. To the eye. Only this time, he drowns. The water takes him under. When he tries to swim up, hands break through the earth, pull him back down. He breathes—his lungs are full. He vomits water, vomits blood. The water turns red.</p><p>Hamilton breaks through the surface with a gasp, finds himself back in the too-white room. Outside, the sky is growing pink, hinting at a sunrise he’ll never get to enjoy.</p><p>“Hamilton?” Madison asks, cautious—relieved.</p><p>He acknowledges Madison with his eyes only. Moving anything else is too hard.</p><p>It’s close now. He can’t feel his legs, his arms, his raw wrists. Not even his neck hurts anymore. Everything feels hazy and distant. It’s comfortable, in a way. He’s floating above it all, his soul coming untethered from his body. From the pain of being bound to the earth, he’s going into the emptiness.</p><p>“Why would you do that?” Madison asks him. Hamilton hears him this time, vaguely wonders how many times Madison has asked already. It sounds like he’s asked it already. “I was—you could’ve… why?”</p><p>It costs him to open his mouth. The lightness wraps around him, promising him relief.</p><p>“Laurens,” Hamilton gets out, and it drains him the last of his energy.</p><p>Madison’s hand finds his. It’s cold. Freezing.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Madison says again. His voice breaks. “I’ll—we’ll be alright. I'll find him. I... thank you.”</p><p>Yellow swallows Hamilton whole as The Other Side takes him.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton blinks awake. His mind is as clear as his shoulders are light. He feels well-rested, sated—at peace. Vaguely, he knows the feeling is alien to him now, but he doesn’t dwell on why.</p><p>He stands slowly, savoring the easy stretch of his muscles.</p><p>He’s on a beach. A breeze flutters his clothes, cools his face. In the distance, the sun is setting, painting the sky gold. He isn’t sure where he’s going, but something is calling him. He lets the current take him, allows himself to be pulled along. Cornflowers sprout beneath his bare feet as he walks, purple-blue trailing behind him. Gulls caw in the air around him. Fireflies come to life in the dying day, flickering soothingly in the light. Locusts and crickets croak in the grass beyond the sand dunes. He walks along the beach, savoring the salty air, the splash of cool tides against his ankles.</p><p>Gradually, a shape appears in the distance. As he nears, he realizes it’s a woman. Her back is to him, her hair floating blowing lazily in the breeze. A sense of safety, of home cradles Hamilton like a blanket as he approaches until he’s finally close enough to realize who it is.</p><p>“Mom?” he gets out, his voice breaking on the syllable.</p><p>After a long moment, she turns. She’s young, smiling, her face untouched by life’s grief. She’s as beautiful as he remembers, her eyes as kind as they are in his memories.</p><p>“Alex,” she says. “My baby.”</p><p>There’s a moment where Hamilton can’t move at all. And then he rushes forwards, arms thrown out. She meets him halfway, swallowing him in a hug.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he apologizes, again and again until she pulls away, meeting his eyes.</p><p>“For what?”</p><p>“I should’ve come sooner—I shouldn’t have left you. I—”</p><p>She silences him in an instant, shaking her head.</p><p>“Don’t say that. You did exactly what you were supposed to. Don’t ever say that.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he repeats, his voice breaking.</p><p>“No.” Her eyes soften with sadness. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>Hamilton’s stomach twists. There’s someone else that should be here, but he can’t remember who. His mother watches him as he tries to piece it together, her face full of sorrow. Her mouth opens—then closes. Hamilton swallows. He searches for the name. Strains.</p><p>It comes to him with a rush of pain and the vague feeling that something’s wrong.</p><p>“Where’s Laurens?” he asks, sick.</p><p>“He wouldn’t come,” she tells him, wrapping her arms around him when his chest heaves. “No, it’s not what you think. He loves you, and he knows you love him—that’s why he wouldn’t come. He knew you wouldn’t leave if he was here.”</p><p>“Why would I leave?” Hamilton asks, anxious. “I’m supposed to be here. I—I died. I came because I wanted to. Something brought me here—to you. I felt it.”</p><p>“You’ve been fading in and out for days, baby. But you’re not here to stay. You’re just passing through,” she tells him, her voice glass-thin. “It’s not your time yet.”</p><p>Nausea overtakes him, but she catches him as he stumbles. He turns away, looks out into the never-ending sea, to the melting sun beyond. The sunset is still golden, but it’s not a pleasant golden anymore—it’s maliciously yellow, foreboding. Like the eye of a hurricane.</p><p>“No,” he insists. “I don’t have to go anywhere. I don’t have anywhere else <em>to go.</em>”</p><p>“Yes, you do—you can go back to them.”</p><p>“To them?” Alex asks, incredulous. “Who, Madison and Jefferson?”</p><p>“They need you right now more than either of us do,” she tells him.</p><p>The words fill him with rage; yellow creeps across the sky.</p><p>“I’ve already fucking saved them!” Hamilton snarls. “I’ve already done enough—and they still fucking hate me! I deserve this. I deserve this one <em>goddamned </em>thing. I <em>deserve</em> to be selfish.”</p><p>“I know, honey.” She reaches out, strokes soothing fingers through his hair. “I know you do.”</p><p>Hamilton closes his eyes.</p><p>“But it’s not just them. There are other people that need you,” she says. “Your friends are still out there. Aaron—”</p><p>“—Burr is <em>not </em>my friend.”</p><p>“Hercules. The Schuyler sisters.”</p><p>“Minus Peggy,” another voice chimes in, irked.</p><p>Hamilton twists around, gasping quietly when he sees her.</p><p>Her arms are crossed, her brows arched as she looks on—but as he looks on, she offers him a smile. She looks exactly like he remembers—<em>no, </em>his mind cuts in, <em>she doesn’t.</em></p><p>“Peggy,” he says, sorrow filling his voice as he remembers New York, the Schuylers’ estate. This Peggy is alive, all in one piece. “I’m—"</p><p>She cuts him off with a raised hand.</p><p>“Save it,” she tells him. “I’ve already heard it from everyone else here.”</p><p>He steps toward her, grabbing ahold of her hands.</p><p>“It was blood loss,” she explains, smiling weakly. “I got bit on the ankle. We tried to take off the leg, but… Well, you’ll find my sisters eventually. When you do, Angelica’s eventually gonna try to tell you it was her fault—and when she does, I want you to slap her. <em>Hard. </em>Tell her it came from me.”</p><p>“Peggy, I—”</p><p>“You know that Seabury is still alive too, right? We picked him up when we drove by Columbia—I said we should leave him behind, of course, but Burr stopped anyways. If you stay here, he’s probably going to get appointed to a Cabinet position once the government gets rebuilt—”</p><p>Blatant bait, but Hamilton falls for it anyways.</p><p>“That little fucker could make anarchy look appealing,” Hamilton snarls. He freezes, glancing to his mother. “I don’t usually swear,” he sheepishly tells her, even though it’s a blatant lie.</p><p> She just smiles, sad. Proud.</p><p>“Hamilton,” Peggy says after a moment, regaining his attention. “Do you remember what sent you here?”</p><p>“Yeah—I died.”</p><p>“But how? I remember how I died. You do too. You need to remember. Come on—think.”</p><p>He doesn’t want to know—he knows it isn’t pretty—but he complies. He sifts through childhood memories, though classes at Columbia, through first dates and <em>I-love-yous</em>, through the day everything fell apart. It gets fuzzy then, but Hamilton strains, pushes past it—pushes to the memory of his neck splitting open like a pomegranate, to the sick <em>squelch </em>of teeth tearing away flesh—he falls, crying out.</p><p>His hand clamps over his neck, and the pain is back in a white-hot rush. The world around him flickers. A yellow haze sets in, making it hard to see. Hamilton coughs, and sticky black blood comes up.</p><p>“No,” he gasps, clawing to latch onto the sand beneath him. His mother and Peggy drop to their knees beside him. “I should be dead, I can’t be—"</p><p>But even as he says it, he knows he’s still alive. It wouldn’t hurt like this if he weren’t. It couldn’t.</p><p>“It’s still going to kill me,” Hamilton insists, his hand clutching the wound. “It kills everyone.”</p><p>“Not you—not if you leave,” his mother soothes him, stroking his hair again. “You have to live, Alex. They need you. Whatever it is that’s different about you—”</p><p>“—Hamilton, if what happened to me happens to my sisters—"</p><p>“I don’t want to save anybody,” Hamilton begs. “I just want to—please. I just want to see Laurens.”</p><p>“He won’t come. He knows you won’t leave if you see him here.”</p><p>“I won’t leave anyways,” Hamilton protests. “I don’t want this. I’m ready to go. God—it <em>hurts.” </em>A sob tears out of his throat. “Make it stop. I don’t—”</p><p>Above them, the sky swirls jaundice yellow. Somewhere close, lightning crackles. The salt stings his skin.</p><p>“Alex,” his mom says. “It’s alright. We’re alright. We’ll still be here when it’s time. We’ll wait.”</p><p>“No. No, don’t make me say goodbye again,” Hamilton pleads.</p><p>“It’s not goodbye,” she tells him, her smile wavering. “I’m not going anywhere.”</p><p>“Please—I…”</p><p>Hamilton closes his eyes. The wind whips around him, thick and heavy. The sand beneath his fingers feels so much less real—feels like gritty fabric instead. He’s stuck in the middle, walking the line.</p><p>Hamilton tries to tell himself they’re not real—it’s just his mind. Hallucinations. Vicious ones—cleverer than the others. But maybe they’re not fever dreams at all: maybe it’s just his dying consciousness trying to urge him to hang on a little longer. He doesn’t have to listen to them. It’s not real. No one is immune. Everything that gets bit goes. He's still going to die. He can't fight it.</p><p>But he’s still here, isn’t he? Hallucination or not, he's still conscious on some level. Some part of him is still fighting to stay alive, even as Hamilton tries to tell himself otherwise. Even through the agony, he's fighting.</p><p>“Hamilton?” someone asks, far-away.</p><p>Hamilton closes his eyes. It’s not real.</p><p>“Hamilton!” the voice repeats, closer.</p><p>Something cold touches his face. <em>Not real.</em></p><p>“Jesus, Hamilton. Don’t make me do this. Please.”</p><p>This isn’t real—but he knows the voice is. It’s Madison—Madison is real.</p><p>Madison is—Madison doesn’t—Hamilton tries to reach out to him, tries to tell him he’s there.</p><p>Peggy holds his hand. His mom presses a kiss to his face.</p><p>“It’s alright, Alex,” she tells him. “But you have to go back—for me. For them.”</p><p>Hamilton breathes out. Gradually, his fingers loosen their grip on the sand.</p><p>“I love you,” she says, “I always will. But they need you. Wake up, Alex.”</p><p>He lets go.</p><p>“I love you too,” Hamilton tells her, beaten as he rests his head on her shoulder.</p><p>Peggy’s hand feels fainter and fainter around his, but when he looks at her, she’s smiling at him. Hamilton forces himself to smile back.</p><p>“Tell Laurens I love him,” he says—because even if it isn’t real, he has to say it one last time.</p><p>And when Hamilton looks up, there he is just down the shore. He looks—good. Peaceful.              </p><p>“I know you do,” Laurens tells him, smiling sadly.</p><p>Hamilton studies his face, tries to commit to memory the pattern of freckles splashed across his face. But before Hamilton can reach out, he’s gasping awake. His eyes snap open to see Madison hovering over him, his face ashen. There’s something in Madison’s hands, raised over him, about to be brought down.</p><p>“No,” Hamilton gasps out, desperate. <em>Surviving.</em> He's still fighting. “Not yet.”</p><p>He fades into the black.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton wakes up in a too-white room. His head hurts something vicious. For a minute, he thinks he’s savagely hungover after a night of drinking with his friends—but just like it always does, the realization that Laurens’ is dead strikes him like a backhand across the face.</p><p><em>Laurens—</em>distantly, among a sea of dozens and dozens of terrible hallucinations, Hamilton remembers dreaming of the ocean and of yellow skies. The memories slip like sand between his fingers. <em>Laurens</em>.</p><p>Hamilton isn’t dead yet—but he will be soon.</p><p>For now, he settles on trying to get something to drink. He might die, but it won’t be because of fucking dehydration. He tries to get up, but everything hurts, and his hands are tied taut by rope.</p><p>
  <em>Where the fuck is Madison? </em>
</p><p>Hamilton tries to shout for him, then remembers that there’s supposed to be a hundred infected skulking around. It’s quiet outside now, but that’s no guarantee of anything. Hamilton decides to take matters into his own hands. He tests his bindings. It takes a few minutes, but when he pulls a particular way, the bedpost moves just enough for him to slip out the ropes. He’s still tied, but it’s progress.</p><p>Hamilton stands—only to discover he can barely walk. He collapses forward, dizzy, his muscles weak beneath him. His second try is only a little more successful. Through a combination of shuffling and heavy wall-leaning, he makes it out into the hall. He pauses, listening.</p><p>Someone’s talking downstairs. He strains his ears—realizes it’s Madison.</p><p>Encouraged at the revelation, he moves towards the stairs. It’s an overestimation of his current ability because he only just manages to grab onto the railing before tripping. Ungracefully, he slides down the entire fucking flight of steps on his ass. At the bottom, Hamilton groans miserably. In light speed, he’s facing down the barrel of a revolver.</p><p>“Madison,” Hamilton rasps, his voice dry and crackly. Behind him, Jefferson bursts from the kitchen, a knife in hand—and <em>there’s</em> a face he never thought he’d be happy to see. “See? I told you he’d be fine.”</p><p>The knife falls from Jefferson’s hand and clatters to the floor.</p><p>Madison takes a step back, looking ashen.</p><p>Hamilton struggles to his feet with the help of the banister, looking between the two of them.</p><p>“Well, looks like you found a gun,” he remarks, forcing a grin. Well—that’ll move things along. He doesn’t know how he feels about that, but… “Don’t suppose you’d let me borrow it?”</p><p>Madison recovers first, leaning forward and pressing a cool hand to Hamilton’s forehead. He steps away a second later, looking to Jefferson with a twisted expression. The two have one of their extended silent eye-contact conversations. It pisses Hamilton more than usual this time.</p><p>“Can I <em>please </em>get some fucking water, at least?” Hamilton snaps, regaining their attention.</p><p> Jefferson clears his throat.</p><p>“Uh… Hamilton, how long do you think it’s been?”</p><p>“Since what?”</p><p>“Oh, you know, since your bachelor party—Jesus, what the fuck do you<em> think?”</em></p><p>Hamilton scowls, shaking his head. He strains his memory, thinks about the sunlight outside.</p><p>“It’s day. I don’t know—a day?”</p><p>He lifts a tied hand to his neck, hesitating when his fingers meet knotted scar tissue. Madison watches him gravely. The moment sinks in. Confusion sets in. Denial.</p><p>“It’s been two weeks, Hamilton.”</p><p>Hamilton isn’t dead. He isn’t in a coma. He isn’t even unconscious.</p><p>He’s improbably, miraculously, exceptionally alive. He’s walking around. He’s thinking. He’s not craving bloody murder. Hamilton collapses onto the last stair. His head spins.</p><p>“Well, I’ll be damned,” Jefferson wonders aloud, wide-eyed. “He’s fucking immune.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>this is long as fuck. sorry. usually not so long lmao</p><p>-the infected in this fic are inspired by The Last of Us' zombies--you don't need any background with TLOU. any necessary info is included in the fic<br/>-some chapter-specific warnings will come in chapter notes, but no other archive warnings will apply<br/>-the slowburn tag refers to hamilton/jefferson and hamilton/madison: madison/jefferson have got their shit together. also, like seriously. this is a SLOW burn slowburn. whatever you're thinking, it's slower haha<br/>-special thanks to my beta m (@toads)!! if you appreciate badass madison, be sure to check out their fic political abyss<br/>-if you enjoy, leave kudos and a comment. if i can write 20k chapters like the dumbass that i am, you can click a couple buttons<br/><br/>chapter-specific notes:<br/>-fun fact: i've never written anything for hamilton before. so this is a first. also i'm so psyched for that july play release. literally cannot wait to see daveed diggs onscreen.</p><p>that's all for now! again: kudos and comments if you enjoy. i swear it makes shit come faster lmao</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. In The Shit Now</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>so this chapter was originally 35k words. and i said fuck that because while i'm stupid, but not that stupid. so i split it up--the second half of the boston arc will come in four, five ish days? probably sunday, but maybe later becaseu TLOU comes out in TWO DAYS!!! so i'm going to crawl underground to play that shit.</p><p>anyways i added the badass james madison tag for y'all i stan that man. can't believe i'm the first to use that tag. </p><p>special thanks to be my beta m (@washingtononyourside) for taking 35k and beta-ing it all in less than a day. legend shit!! we're part of the badass james madison gang, so go check out their fic political abyss for more madison appreciation</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>In The Shit Now</strong>
</p><p>Hamilton spends hours looking in the mirror.</p><p>Jagged punctures, vivid pink. The right crook of his neck is mottled and dented, and the skin is stretched tight, barely healed over, still hot to the touch. Hamilton stares until he’s hyperventilating, until he can’t breathe— and then he sinks down to the floor, still staring, unable to tear his eyes away.</p><p>Madison finds him the next morning.</p><p>“Are you awake?” he asks outside the door, his voice thick. Hesitant. “Hamilton?”</p><p>“I haven’t turned yet, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he thinly answers.</p><p>“May I come in?”</p><p>“I don’t care.”</p><p>The door opens. Hamilton doesn’t turn, but he can see Madison in the mirror, see his eyes locking onto the angry scar on Hamilton’s neck. Madison watches him for a long time, finally looks away.</p><p>“There’s coffee downstairs,” he tries. “Come down and have some.”</p><p>“I’m not thirsty.”</p><p>“Then come have something to eat.”</p><p>“I’m not hungry either.”</p><p>Madison stands in the doorway a moment longer, looking like he wants to say something else. The pity that’d only just started to melt off his face has come back swinging full force, buries everything else.</p><p>Madison edges towards Hamilton for just an instant—but then his reflections turns and leaves.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It eats Hamilton alive.</p><p>
  <em>Whywhywhy?</em>
</p><p>He doesn’t understand why it’s him. Why does it have to be him? Why have so many other people died instead? Why? It should’ve been someone else—shouldn’t have been him. He should’ve—Christ, what if others were immune, but they didn’t know? What if they killed the others before they had the chance to prove they wouldn’t turn? Are more people immune? What if he’s the only one? What does that mean for the world?</p><p>The thoughts weigh on Hamilton, bear down on him like an anvil. Every second of the day, they haunt him. Every morning, they jump-start his mind into awareness. His nightmares start back up—they never really left, of course, but now they’re as bad as they ever were. He can’t sleep. He’s not hungry; he barely eats. If it weren’t for the tea and coffee Madison forcibly shoves into his hands half a dozen times a day, he probably wouldn’t drink either. Hamilton floats through the next few days in a fugue state, drinking without tasting, hearing without listening, watching without seeing.</p><p>The only thing that grounds him are the infected. They’re all that can bring him out of the prison he's building in his mind.</p><p>“Pull over,” Hamilton orders, snapping back to reality as the car slows.</p><p>There’s an infected in the middle of the road. There’s no real need to stop—Jefferson could just drive around—but he complies anyways.</p><p>Hamilton is distantly aware that the two of them are worried about him; they fall into concerned conversations in French, oblivious that Hamilton’s just as well-versed in the language as them. They talk about him in murmurs and hushed voices—but always quiet when they see him, stopping him from ever overhearing much.</p><p>They’re worried over him. Or worried for themselves, more likely—Hamilton isn’t exactly pulling his weight. He’s burned enough food in the past couple days that they’re keeping him from cooking, and he’s too distracted to clean guns, to scavenge, to keep track of supplies. If it’s a task that doesn’t involve killing the infected, Hamilton is only half-present.</p><p>The infected, on the other hand?</p><p>Hamilton throws the car door open, stepping out. The infected sees him—screams.</p><p>It starts to charge. Hamilton lifts his gun, fires.</p><p>His gun clicks empty.</p><p>He forgot to fucking load it. It’s the straws that breaks the dam.</p><p>Hamilton throws his pistol down, pulls his knife, and charges with a yell. He meets the infected first, dodges a swiping arm, tackles—the infected goes down with Hamilton on top of him. Hamilton’s vision swims with red. Anger swallows him. He yells furiously, brings his knife down into the infected’s eye. It spears straight through, stills after a deflated screech, but Hamilton wrenches his knife free. He’s gonna fucking—</p><p>“Bastard!” he screams, driving his knife down again. And again. And again. Rotten, spoiled blood splashes his hands, his arms, his face. He doesn’t notice. He can’t fucking think—all he can do is kill it again and again and again. He’s going to kill them all—he’s going to kill every last fucking one. “<em>MOTHERFUCKER</em>!”</p><p>Shrieks surround him as half a dozen infected snarl out of the woods, drawn out by his yelling. They reach for him with greyed hands, with fungus swallowing their mouths, their eyes, their faces.</p><p>Hamilton’s eyes shoot up, feral. He’s ready to take them down. He doesn’t fucking care that all he’s got is a knife, that he’s surrounded on both sides, he’s going to—Jefferson’s shotgun explodes with a resounding crack. The infected closest to him goes down in a spray of hot blood that washes Hamilton’s face. Between Madison’s revolver and Jefferson’s shorty, the rest go down just as fast—Hamilton can’t even get a hit in on another infected before they’re all dead.</p><p>Still, he’s breathing heavily, his teeth gritted, his nails cutting into his palms where his fists are knotted up at his sides. He can taste blood, but Hamilton doesn’t realize it’s his until he’s another pound of pressure away from biting halfway through his tongue. He doesn’t have time to consider any of it before Jefferson is in front of him, fury in his eyes as he gets into Hamilton’s face.</p><p>“Hamilton,” Jefferson growls, grabbing ahold of his collar and coming an inch away from yanking him straight off the ground. “Enlighten me. Tell me what the ever-loving <em> fuck </em> you were thinking just now, and <em>m</em><em>aybe </em> I won’t lay your ass flat.” Hamilton has half the mind to headbutt him, break his fucking nose. He doesn’t—but only because Madison’s still holding onto his revolver half a dozen feet away. “Are you kidding me? Now’s the <em>one </em>damn time when you don’t have anything to say to me?”</p><p>Jefferson lets go of Hamilton’s collar, shoves him off-balance.</p><p>“I can’t believe you. You didn’t load your <em> gun? </em> Are you out of your goddamned mind or just that fucking stupid? You were going to take on seven infected with a <em>knife?</em> If we hadn’t been here— <em> ” </em></p><p>“Well, then I guess I’m lucky I have the two of you around,” Hamilton snaps.</p><p>“Yeah, damn fucking right you are. Jesus, Hamilton! You might be the only one on this shitty fucking planet that’s survived being bit, and you can’t even remember to load your gun before you throw a tantrum. Would it kill you to think of someone other than yourself? Just <em> once, </em>think of what’ll happen to the rest of us if you die from your own damn stupidity. Newsflash: we need you alive, jackass!”</p><p>Hamilton's so—he’s so goddamn angry he can’t even think. Anger at the infected, the world, Jefferson—everything. The anger burns like acid in his chest, rises up his throat, burns the entire way as it spews from his mouth.</p><p>“Newsflash? <em> Newsflash?” </em>Hamilton yells, getting right back into Jefferson’s space. “Here’s a fucking newsflash: I wish I was dead! I wish it’d been someone else! I wish Laurens—”</p><p>A single vicious, angry sob hacks out of his throat. There's a second of peace—but then the rest come. Hamilton crumples to the ground on his knees and buries his face in his hands, the wracking force of his sobs shaking his entire body. There are no tears—after the past year and a half, he doesn’t think he’ll ever cry another tear again—but his chest heaves violently, wrenching the air right out of his lungs.</p><p>Jefferson steps back, eyes wide, hands lifting.</p><p>“I… uh…” A pause. An awkward clearing of his throat. “Are you crying?”</p><p>“No,” Hamilton snarls between sobs, topping himself for the most boldfaced lie he’s ever told.</p><p>Five seconds pass, then ten before Jefferson’s Louboutins appear in his vision.</p><p>“Jesus. Look, Hamilton, come on,” Jefferson tells him, trying and failing to sound sympathetic. It only comes across as awkward, and Hamilton wishes he’d just be angry instead. “For fuck’s sake, we can talk about this later. Let’s just get out of the open.”</p><p>Hamilton drags in a sharp breath, tries to swallow down the next lurch of his stomach. Slowly, he stands, keeping his eyes firmly locked at some point over Jefferson’s shoulder. Out of the side of his vision, he can see the discomfort twisting Jefferson’s face.</p><p>“You’ve, uh, got blood on your face,” Jefferson tells him, handing him a handkerchief.</p><p>“I don’t fucking care,” he replies, but he swipes the square of fabric out of Jefferson’s hand anyway.</p><p>The car is quiet for miles. Occasionally, Hamilton’s chest still shakes in aftershocks. He keeps his eyes closed.</p><p>“Thomas and I have been talking,” Madison eventually begins, “and we think you should go to England.”</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t reply.</p><p>“We’ve discussed it at length. Neither of us know what’s different about you. There’s been millions and millions of infected but never a confirmed case of immunity.”</p><p>Hamilton knows that much. He doesn’t pay attention to news any longer, but he remembers the reports from the early days. He and Laurens used to huddle around staticky TVs back before the electricity cut off—and then radios once it did. And when the radios went silent, they got their news by mouth.</p><p>And then Laurens died. Hamilton stopped caring.</p><p>But he knows the basics.</p><p>He knows the name: <em>Cordyceps Brain Infection. </em>He knows what it is from post-pandemic pamphlets; <em>CBI is a parasitic fungal infection that only affects living hosts… propagates through wounds from the infected and spores released by the infected’s corpses… 100% infection rate upon exposure. </em>He knows what it does from personal experience; <em>infection results in loss of higher brain function within one to three days, hyper-aggression, incapability of reason.</em></p><p>The infection rate is what matters; the infection rate is why humanity’s whimpering and limping along to a pathetic end. The infection rate is why Hamilton shouldn’t still be alive—or why his mind shouldn’t be alive, that is. The mind perishes; the body shambles on, violent, merciless, shelled-out like a cantaloupe missing its innards. But it’s easier to think of infection as death—easier to kill infected when Hamilton can believe that the person inside has moved on.</p><p>“The strain the infection comes from used to only affect ants,” Madison finishes explaining; Hamilton missed the rest. “It caused the same symptoms, but they’d adapted to it over the course of thousands of years. We never had the chance. We have no defenses, no evolutionary reflex—nothing except you. You could be the key to this, Hamilton.”</p><p>The window is cool against his cheek. Time ticks on; the car is painfully silent. They were listening to opera, but Madison’s turned it off. For once, Hamilton wants to listen.</p><p>“I don’t understand why I’m different from anyone else,” he finally replies, shaking his head. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since I woke up. I’m not—I mean, I’ve had physicals before. I got hit by a car on my bike once and had to go to the hospital. I got X-rays and stuff. Someone would’ve noticed if I had two fucking hearts or something, right?”</p><p>“Well, it’s gotta be <em> something,” </em>Jefferson cuts in. “For fuck’s sake—the entire world was looking for someone like you for months after the outbreak. There’s gotta be something in your—fuck, I don’t know, your DNA? RNA? Genes? Whatever’s special about people—look, I’m in humanities, not a fucking STEM major.”</p><p>“Maybe it was just the bite,” Hamilton proposes. “I don’t know—it missed my bloodstream?”</p><p>“Yeah, you were an inch away from getting your larynx ripped out, so I’m gonna shoot that one down.”</p><p>“Then maybe it was just that infected!” Hamilton suggests, his anger from the road resurging full-force. “Maybe I bled too damn much for the infection to take hold! Maybe the infected had just brushed its fucking teeth! Maybe it was just a freak fucking incident! I don’t fucking know—I just don’t understand why it’s got to me be!”</p><p>There's a second of silence, then Jefferson barks out a laugh—a maniacal, unhinged sound.</p><p>“<em>Why’s it gotta be me </em>?” Jefferson mocks him, his voice gratuitously shrill and slathered thick with Southern righteousness. “Jesus, Hamilton, you don’t think I ask myself that every day? You’re not fucking special.”</p><p>“There’s teeth marks in my neck that say otherwise,” Hamilton snaps back.</p><p>Jefferson’s head whips around, and now Hamilton can see the anger written in his face. Their argument in the road is unresolved; they’re still angry, still ready to go at it.</p><p>“Yeah, so maybe you <em> are </em> some kind of biological miracle, but do you really think you invented survivor’s guilt? I was <em> in </em> Philadelphia, Hamilton. The entire goddamned <em> city </em> was infected, or ripped apart, or <em> burned alive </em> . Madison and I only made it out because we went through the fucking <em> sewers </em> ! If we hadn’t, we’d have died with everyone else when the Redcoats scorched the earth. Do you think that doesn’t wear on me? Do you think I don’t think about how almost everyone on that goddamned stage is <em>dead? </em>”</p><p>Madison reaches over, absentmindedly pulling Jefferson’s seatbelt into place.</p><p>“Yeah, and I was on the Brooklyn Bridge! The infected cornered us in our cars! Do you <em> know </em> how many people I watched throw themselves off the bridge? Do you <em> know </em> how many people I had to watch weigh whether they wanted to die from infected or the fall? We only made it off because so many people took their chances with the fucking infected! Every <em> goddamned </em> time someone died, we ran past. People were a goddamn <em> sacrifice </em> for the rest of us to get away. <em> That’s </em>the kind of shit that wears on you!”</p><p>“Yeah, and the Redcoats Molotov’d my whole fucking house after I read the Declaration—”</p><p>“Thomas, if you don’t—"</p><p>“—and all of fucking New York City got bombed to hell and back—"</p><p>“Hamilton—"</p><p>“—do you even <em> know </em>how many people I heard screaming above me—”</p><p>“Will you both—"</p><p>“—I found my own friend <em> dead </em> in her room with her fucking leg cut off—”</p><p>“So God help me—"</p><p>“—well, every <em>damn</em> <em>one</em> of my friends is dead—"</p><p>“—that’s not fucking fair, and you know it! You’re not alone. You’ve still got your fucking boyfriend—”</p><p>“—my own goddamned <em> brother </em>is dead—”</p><p>The car screeches to a halt as Madison brake-checks them all. Jefferson almost plows face-first into the windshield, saved only by a vicious <em>yank </em>of his seatbelt. Hamilton fairs similarly, but he’s leaned too far forward in his yelling, and his face smashes unceremoniously into the back of Madison’s seat.</p><p>“What the <em> fuck?” </em> Jefferson and Hamilton ask, but Madison speaks over them both, his eyes burning dark with anger—a step above anger, Hamilton realizes. Oh, they’re in deep shit now—Madison’s got his <em> you-just-fucked-with-me-while-I-was-meditating </em>expression on, and it’s directed full-force at them both.</p><p>“Christ, are the two of you turning tragedy into a competition?” Madison asks them both, his voice dropping into a clipped, hoarse growl that Hamilton’s never heard before. “Is that what I’m hearing? Are you both so goddamned self-absorbed that you’re trying to one-up each other on how much you’ve suffered? Tell me—am I getting this right?” Madison turns to look at them, and all the anger he’s ever felt in his life seems to be boiling over, spilling out onto his face. “I asked a question—<em>answer</em> <em>me</em>.”</p><p>“No,” Hamilton starts to argue, his voice still clipped. “I’m just saying that—”</p><p>“I don’t imagine that I’m going to like where you take that sentence, so I’ll generously allow you exactly one second to think twice,” Madison cuts him off, meeting his eyes in the mirror.</p><p>A second passes. Hamilton hesitates—then closes his mouth.</p><p>“Here’s a thought,” Madison continues, his voice somehow even more gravelly than before. “Every goddamned person that’s still alive is asking themselves why they’re still here. No one hasn’t lost someone—and not a damn day goes by when I don’t ask why I’m not dead too. I could die a hundred different ways every damn day—but I <em> haven’t</em>. I don’t know why I've been lucky. I never will. It just <em> is.” </em></p><p>Madison inhales sharply. His head tips back. His eyes close. A ten-count passes.</p><p>“None of us are ever going to get back the people we’ve lost,” Madison says, his voice marginally more even. His eyes open. “And I don’t expect any of us will ever fully recover from losing them either.”</p><p>He turns around, meeting Hamilton’s eyes, pity spilling out of his eyes and into his voice.</p><p>“I am sorry about John Laurens—I truly am. But your death won’t bring him back. Whatever happened, he’s gone. Rushing into a pack of infected without a loaded gun won’t change that—it’ll only get <em> you </em>killed, and I’ve spent damn near enough time watching you die already.”</p><p>Guilt spikes through Hamilton.</p><p>He doesn’t—he wouldn’t—shit. He wouldn’t want to watch either of them turn. He wouldn’t want to watch anyone turn. He’s come across dying, infected people more than once, listened to them beg not to be left—and fuck. How much has he forgotten? How much did he say to Madison that he doesn’t remember? How long did Madison watch him teeter on the edge, writhe and scream?</p><p>Silence sinks in the car. Again, it’s Madison who at last speaks.</p><p>“Hamilton, there’s an opportunity here. It won’t bring back the people you’ve lost. I wish more than anything that I could tell you differently— but I can’t. All I can tell you is that perhaps you can spare someone else the suffering we’ve all gone through.” He taps his fingers against the steering wheel in skittery, distinct patterns. “You should go to England. When the Redcoats pulled most of their troops out, they took the nation’s top surgeons and epidemiologists with them. If someone in the world is working on a cure, they’re in England. And the last Thomas and I heard, they were still waiting on their breakthrough. If there’s a breakthrough to be had, it’s you. And you’ll be safe there. Taken care of.”</p><p>Hamilton closes his eyes. Madison’s right. He knows he is.</p><p>There’s nothing here for him anymore, not really. He’s just surviving, just staying alive.</p><p>It’s just—the burden is back on his shoulders, squeezing the air out of his lungs. He doesn’t know how he’s even supposed to breathe anymore. He <em> has </em> to do this, he <em> has </em>to do that. His freedom is dissipating before his eyes, smoking into the air in intangible wisps.</p><p>“You keep saying <em> I </em> should go to England. Always <em> I. </em> Never <em> we. </em>”</p><p>“I wrote the Declaration of Independence, Hamilton,” Jefferson speaks up, his voice jaded. “Madison was working on a Constitution for the country. I don’t know how much more treasonous against the Crown you can get. You know what happens to people who do shit like that? And that’s before the world went to hell. Good fuckin’ luck getting any kind of actual trial now.”</p><p>Hamilton sinks into his seat, reaching to grab his backpack. It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. He’ll figure it out. He always does. He’s been on his own before; he hasn’t forgotten how to be on his own.</p><p>“Fine. I don’t need your help anyways.”</p><p>“Jesus, we’re not leaving you on the side of the fucking road,” Jefferson exclaims, grabbing Hamilton’s wrist. Hamilton jerks away, glaring viciously. “We’ll help you get passage there, for fuck’s sake. And then we’ll get the hell out of dodge—happy endings for everyone.”</p><p>Hamilton looks between the two of them.</p><p>It’s fine, Hamilton tells himself. It doesn’t matter. It’s just—he’s already lost everyone.</p><p>Now he has to lose his country too. What’s left of it. But he’s loved the country since the moment his feet first hit its soil. He loves the colonies<em>—no,</em> the United States.</p><p>Hamilton fought so hard to hear that name spoken aloud at Washington’s inauguration and was ready to pay for its name in his own blood if he had to. He was so ready to join the fight if the Redcoats pushed back with force, tried to deny them independence. He doesn’t have any pretenses that he’s poor, an immigrant, a bastard with no name worth its salt. The Revolution was his chance to rise up out of oblivion, to write his name into the history books.</p><p>He doesn’t get that anymore. No one does—but now he can’t even stay in the country he loves.</p><p>Hamilton has lost everyone. Now he has to lose his home too. What’s worse—he has to lose it to go to England. <em> England— </em>the only other places he hates more are Nevis and Charleston.</p><p>And what’s more—it was fucking stupid of him to think this was going to last. It doesn’t matter, but he’s just gotten used to being around Jefferson and Madison, just gotten used to all their ridiculous bullshit. He doesn’t even care about either of them—he <em> doesn’t— </em>but fuck.</p><p>He shouldn’t have bothered.</p><p>All those months ago, he shouldn’t have taken Jefferson’s offer. He should’ve just kept walking.</p><p>“Alright,” Hamilton finally agrees, the words sour in his mouth. “I guess I’m going to England.”</p><p>“Great,” Jefferson says, heaving a sigh. He turns to Madison. “Where do you think’s best, Jemmy?”</p><p>Madison looks over, his eyes still as angry as they were when he slammed the brakes.</p><p>“Don’t talk to me right now,” Madison orders. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your little pissing match.” He shakes his head, angry. “Christ, Thomas—I expected better from you.”</p><p>(But apparently not from Hamilton).</p><p>Jefferson opens his mouth, looks vaguely guilty, then sinks back into his seat, chastened. Hamilton is too tired to even take pleasure in the rebuke.</p><p>The car falls into unpleasant silence.</p><p>It’s a long drive before they stop for the night.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton has never seen Madison mad at Jefferson before. Playfully annoyed, sure—even genuinely irritated, once or twice. But not angry—never angry. It’s clear this is anger.</p><p>The car is silent. Jefferson reaches once to turn on the music; Madison smacks his hand away.</p><p>Once they find a place to hunker down for the night, Madison doesn’t speak to Jefferson in sentences longer than three syllables all evening, despite Jefferson’s best efforts to lure him into conversation—any kind of conversation. Jefferson’s attempts to engage him gradually die out until there’s nothing but oppressive silence as they sit around the table, wine in hand. Madison’s fingers tap rhythmically against the side of his glass. He has to refill it faster than usual.</p><p>Hamilton wants to get up, but it feels like the silence in the room is too thick to disturb. It’s settled over all of them like a heavy blanket, and any attempt to shrug it off feels akin to firing a gun in a church. Hamilton shifts every other second in his seat, fidgeting like a toddler.</p><p>Every so often, he sneaks a glance at the map Madison’s working on. It’s sprawling, massive, and takes up almost half the table. The map depicts the continental United States, annotated with looping cursive and symbols. Madison only brings it out every now and then when they’re working out where to head next; now, he scans it silently, busies himself reading.</p><p><em> New York: bombed; Atlanta; </em> <strike><em> occupied </em></strike> <em> fallen: San Francisco: </em> <strike><em> safe city </em></strike> <em> bombed; Boston: occupied; Chicago: bombed; Chesapeake Bay: occupied; Annapolis: safe city; Albany: occupied; Knoxville: </em> <em><strike> safe city </strike></em> <em> fallen; Providence: occupied; Houston: safe city; Denver: </em> <em><strike> safe city</strike> </em> <em> fallen; Savannah: occupied; New Orleans: occupied; Dallas: safe city; Charleston: </em> <strike><em> safe city </em></strike> <em> fallen. </em></p><p>He stops reading.</p><p>Madison works silently. Jefferson examines his wine glass. Hamilton fidgets.</p><p>“Where did you go to college?” Hamilton finally blurts out as he looks at Madison.</p><p>Even as he says it, he’s embarrassingly aware that, one, he hasn’t attempted small-talk with anyone for about eighteen months—not even with Madison or Jefferson—and, two, that, even for small-talk, it’s a question blander than white bread. Hamilton doesn’t even care about the answer, for fuck’s sake. Madison looks just as unimpressed as Hamilton expected, looks like he’s debating ignoring the question entirely—but, finally, he answers, his politeness winning out over his anger.</p><p>“Princeton University.”</p><p>“Oh, really? That’s cool. My friend—well, he wasn’t actually my friend, more like my rival except not really because I was better than him at everything—anyways, my friend Aaron Burr went there for a year before he transferred to Columbia,” Hamilton babbles, cringing internally at his sudden ineloquence.</p><p>Madison’s eyes flicker up.</p><p>“Aaron Burr?” he asks, weighing the name in his mouth before his eyes light in recognition. “Burr—tall, cagey, a little nervous-looking?”</p><p>“That’s the one!” Hamilton exclaims.</p><p>“Mm. While I was getting my law degree, I was a TA for his Intro to Public Policy class.”</p><p>“No fucking way," Hamilton replies, leaning forward. "Was he a terrible student? Did he get shot down by every girl he asked out? Because it was always the funniest fucking thing when he was—and he was. A lot.”</p><p>“Well, he once turned in a four-thousand-word paper on Savannahian occupation by the Redcoats that somehow had no thesis statement and argued absolutely nothing at all.”</p><p>Madison is marginally less closed-off now, the vaguest hint of amusement grazing his mouth.</p><p>“We were partners once for an in-class debate on the merits of mercantilism,” Hamilton commiserates, “and we both failed because he wouldn’t take a stance I could argue against, even though, you know, that’s the whole fucking point of debating.”</p><p>Jefferson is still enraptured by his wine glass, seemingly determined not to acknowledge either of them—fine. Hamilton can have a perfectly good conversation with Madison sans him.</p><p>“It certainly would’ve made it easier to recognize his intelligence if he’d been more assertive,” Madison remarks.</p><p>“Yeah, I mean—well, I guess he’s smart,” Hamilton reluctantly agrees. “Sometimes.”</p><p>(That’s how he knows it’s the end of the world: he’s openly complimenting Aaron Burr to James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, some of his least favorite Representatives).</p><p> “How was he at Columbia?”</p><p>“Good—I mean, not as good as me—but he wasn’t failing. Except when it came to the math requirement. He got a C minus in statistics.”</p><p>Hamilton leaves out that he also got a C minus, and that he only did that well at all because he and Burr clocked dozens of hours poring over textbooks and notes together in the library. Besides, Hamilton came out a quarter-point ahead of Burr anyways, so he really won in the end.</p><p>“Jefferson,” Madison coolly begins, watching as the man in question flinches at the use of his last name, “failed calculus at UVA. He dropped the class before the final and retook it over the summer.”</p><p>“And I went on to get my J.D. summa cum laude,” Jefferson jumps to defend himself, offense dripping from each word. “I was never going to be a fucking engineer. Pure fucking British tyranny I had to take any math courses at all.”</p><p>It’s too little too late, because Hamilton is too busy laughing his ass off to pay any attention.</p><p>“Oh my god—I can’t believe the author of the Declaration of Independence can’t handle taking a fucking derivative,” Hamilton snickers, grinning viciously. “Jesus—hold on, Madison, did you take calculus?”</p><p>“I did.”</p><p>“And what did you get?”</p><p>“I was a point shy of an A-plus.”</p><p>Hamilton bursts out into a second peal of laughter. Madison and Jefferson still aren’t looking at each other, and Madison is clearly still displeased, but the tension is the room is a little lighter.</p><p>“Hamilton, you were in your last year, weren’t you?” Madison asks, seemingly deciding to put aside his lingering animosity. “Remind me of your major.”</p><p>“Political science with a concentration in econometrics and quantitative economics.”</p><p>“Mm—and what did you plan on doing afterwards?”</p><p>Hamilton looks down to the swirling wine in his glass, swallows the sour taste in his throat.</p><p>“I was planning on going to law school.”</p><p>“Well, shit,” Jefferson drawls. “Three fuckin’ lawyers sit around a table in the middle of the end of the world. At least it’s good to know we’ll be just fine if we’re tossed in front of a post-apocalyptic tribunal.”</p><p>“Yeah, fuck lot of good economics are gonna do in the middle of the apocalypse,” Hamilton scowls, his voice bitter. “What good are most things? Half my friends were gonna be lawyers. One would’ve... she would've been a teacher. Another was already a journalist—Angelica, Philip Schuyler’s daughter. You probably knew her, actually—”</p><p>Abruptly, Madison stands, his face stormy and something else Hamilton can’t quite place.</p><p>“I’m going to bed.” He pointedly doesn’t look at Jefferson. “Goodnight, Alexander.”</p><p>“It’s six-thirty,” Hamilton protests, trying to figure out what the fuck he’s missing as he looks between the two.</p><p>“I’m tired,<em> ” </em> he replies—the <em> of your bullshit </em>is only ever implied with Madison, but Hamilton hears it anyway.</p><p>And then Madison’s gone. Hamilton turns to Jefferson, whose expression has suddenly turned downright murderous in the three seconds since Hamilton looked at him last.</p><p>“Fuck. You.” Jefferson snarls, and then he’s up and gone too—to the other end of the house, away from Madison.</p><p>“What the fuck just happened?” Hamilton asks the empty room.</p><p>No answer comes.</p><p> </p><hr/><p>              </p><p>“We’re going to Boston,” Madison tells them the next morning.</p><p>There’s no coffee this morning, and Hamilton feels like the ice is too thin for him to ask where the mix is. He sits miserably at the table, trying to wake himself up.</p><p>“Why?” he asks without really caring, scrubbing a hand over his face.</p><p>“Because what few Redcoats they left behind are concentrated in the port cities. Boston was still fully English-occupied the last we heard, and it’s supposedly their headquarters and best stronghold, so the risk of taking you somewhere that’ll have fallen by the time we make it there is comparatively low.” Madison's face descends into a frown. "I don't know how much longer the cities left standing will last—hence Boston."</p><p>Hamilton accepts the reasoning with a halfhearted nod. It doesn’t really matter one way or another—no matter where they take him, the road ends in the same place.</p><p>He doesn’t like where the road’s going—but what choice does he have?</p><p>He has to do this.</p><p>It can’t all be for nothing.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Two years ago, a trip to Boston from Kentucky would’ve taken two days of driving.</p><p>Now, it takes weeks. There’s the gas problem—that’s the main issue. The Escalade gets pretty shit mileage for such an expensive car. Half the problem’s probably that they’re constantly lugging around a trunk full of supplies, which can’t help—but still.</p><p>On top of that, Madison refuses to let them drive with anything less than a quarter of a tank, so they constantly spend more time looking for gas than they do actually driving. Hamilton’s gotten good at siphoning gas out of old cars—sometimes they find cans in old garages. If they find a hand-cranked pump somewhere in the country, occasionally the pumps aren’t even dry. Still, looking for gas slows them down considerably. And <em>then </em>there’s the food situation, the water situation, the dozens and dozens of other situations that slow them down, that force them to stop, that always seem to be cropping up.</p><p>But what slows them down most are the roads. Highways are a fucking disaster. They can’t ever make it more than ten miles before finding some semi-flat on its side, blocking every damn lane. That aside, the infected seem to flock to highways.</p><p>(The abandoned cars tell the same story Hamilton lived through on the Brooklyn Bridge, but he doesn’t like to think about that if he doesn’t have to).</p><p>So they tend to drive on back roads, kick up dust and dirt driving through overgrown rows of corn or soybeans or other plants Hamilton knows nothing about and can't identify.</p><p>But then there’s the cities too—they make wide loops around cities, avoiding anywhere densely populated. It’s easy enough when they go through ass-fuck-nowhere Ohio, but as they creep further north, things get trickier. Madison is constantly plotting, constantly poring over a map, drawing lines and giving directions. Jefferson and Hamilton take turns driving, try to follow Madison’s convoluted directions.</p><p>Madison is—well, Hamilton isn’t sure if he’s mad at <em>him </em>or just at Jefferson or at both of them—but he’s clearly making no efforts to engage either of them in conversation. After a day, Jefferson cracks, playacts at kindness towards Hamilton in some misguided effort to win Madison back over.</p><p>He’s vaguely considerate, not a raging jackass, stops responding to Hamilton’s bait—and goading Jefferson is one of Hamilton’s few remaining pleasures. It’s what finally makes Hamilton play along, what makes him look vaguely agreeable with Jefferson.</p><p>After all, Jefferson can be nice to someone other than Madison when he chooses.</p><p>(Hamilton thinks of his hole-free shoes, the ones he never asked about).</p><p>Madison’s anger sizzles out after a few days, evaporates with a heaved sigh over dinner one night. He reaches out, takes Jefferson’s hand, brushes the pad of his thumb over his knuckles.</p><p>(As much as Madison puts on an unaffected air, Hamilton's realized that the truth's that Madison needs Jefferson as much Jefferson needs him).</p><p>Jefferson’s eyes flicker shut. He sinks back in his chair a moment, then straightens a second later with plain relief splashed on his face, looks at Madison with so much love it makes Hamilton’s chest ache.</p><p>“Je t’aime,” Jefferson murmurs to Madison, kissing the back of his hand.</p><p>“Je connais,” he answers, tired as he smiles. “Je t’aime aussi.”</p><p>As always when they fall to French, Hamilton looks oblivious down towards his hands.</p><p>            </p><hr/><p> </p><p>New Years comes; 2012 rolls over into 2013.</p><p>Hamilton can’t think of much of a reason to celebrate, so he goes to bed early. Laughter echoes from another room. Hamilton doesn’t wonder if they share resolutions. If they count down to ten. If they start the year off with a kiss.</p><p>He pulls the pillow over his head and tries not to think of where he was a year ago.</p><p>Charleston felt like home last New Years. Laurens was with him last New Years.</p><p>He’s alone this year.</p><p>The days blend together; Hamilton doesn’t pay much attention. Madison, on the other hand, keeps a planner. He’s religious about it, checks it every morning, marks down where they’re headed, how much ground they need to cover, whether they need to restock on anything in particular. Hamilton doesn’t usually pay it much mind—all that matters is that he has a vague idea of what season it is—but he must be keeping track in some corner of his mind.</p><p>“What day is it?” he asks one morning, leaning forward in the backseat.</p><p>Hamilton looks at the planner in Madison's hands, tracks the marks made over all of the preceding days—and sure as shit, it’s the eleventh just like some part of him expected.</p><p>“Huh,” Hamilton remarks, distantly shocked at his continued existence. “Today’s my birthday.”</p><p>That gets Madison to look up, a rare flicker of surprise painting his features.</p><p>“Is it?”</p><p>“Yes, Madison. It might come as a surprise, but it’s the same day as it is every year.”</p><p>“Wait, so how old are you?” Jefferson jumps in, eyeing Hamilton in the rear-view mirror. “Like, what, twenty?"</p><p>“Twenty-<em>four .</em>”</p><p>“Jesus, you say that like there’s a fucking difference." Jefferson scoffs, apparently finding himself funny. "Talk to me when you’re thirty.”</p><p>Hamilton scowls.</p><p>“Six years of seniority—”</p><p>“Seven, this April.”</p><p>“—doesn’t give you the fucking authority to tell me shit.”</p><p>Madison’s eyes lift irritably to the ceiling of the car. Jefferson catches the shift, stops himself from saying whatever insult was on his lips, shakes his head as if to clear it. He turns around, smiles lazily.</p><p>“Well, happy fuckin’ birthday.”</p><p>“One, get your eyes back on the road before you wrap us around a tree. Two, can we break out the actual fucking booze?”</p><p>“What’d’ya want?”</p><p>“I’m tired of wine,” Hamilton complains. “And whiskey and bourbon or scotch or whatever the hard liquor it is you both drink: they all tastes like moss. Please just tell me you have some normal beer. Jesus, I don’t even care what brand it is as long as I could find it in a gas station. Save the craft shit for someone who cares.”</p><p>“Jesus, I forgot what being in college was like,” Jefferson remarks, amusement mixing with wonder. He smiles as if remembering something—then shakes his head, back to his usual self. “No, we don’t have god-awful beer. Because, you know, we have taste.”</p><p>“Then forget it." Hamilton shrugs it off, rolls the number around his mind. "There’s nothing to celebrate anyways.”</p><p>Jefferson looks at him a second longer in the mirror, then makes a <em>hmph </em>sound and returns to driving.</p><p>They pull over an hour later in the suburbs of some Pennsylvania town that’s probably not even worth the ink it takes to print on the map. It’s quiet, at least—all the people must’ve evacuated after Philadelphia. Hamilton hates to even be in the same state as the capital, hates to even think of the place and of the memories it stirs up. He wonders if Jefferson and Madison feel the same—but if they do, neither of them say it aloud.</p><p>After settling into a house for the night, Jefferson waves as he goes out the door.</p><p>“I’m going on a walk. I’ll be back for dinner.”</p><p>It’s quiet outside, no sign of infected, so they let him go.</p><p>Dinner is nicer than usual, Hamilton notes. Madison’s broken out the ramen—Hamilton’s favorite of their meals—and he cooks more carefully than usual. The house’s spice cabinet is still impressively intact, so Hamilton helps. After three years of college, ramen is his culinary specialty. He just laments they don't have any eggs.</p><p>“What’s the deal with Angelica?” Hamilton asks Madison as they wait for the water to boil. The questions been on his mind for days. In the past week, he’s thought more about her than he has in the last year, let the name burrow into his brain. “I mean, I figured you worked with her dad, so you must’ve known her, but I didn’t realize—”</p><p>“She and Jefferson dated several years,” Madison explains, his voice cool. He sighs, shakes his head, cryptically says, “It was my own fault.”</p><p>“Oh,” Hamilton replies, even though that raises about half a dozen more questions than it answers.</p><p>Madison stirs the pot, considers it a long moment. He finally looks up, his face painted with the familiar pity that Hamilton’s come to hate so much.</p><p>(It’s almost easier to be around Jefferson these days).</p><p>“Did she make it out of New York?”</p><p>“I think so,” Hamilton says after a moment. “But I… don’t know. I mean, some of my friends must’ve. I found… some of them made it upstate, at least. After that, I don’t know.”</p><p>Madison is silent for a long moment. Gradually, Hamilton sees sadness slipping through his veneer, a vacant look glazing over his eyes.</p><p>“I wasn’t standing where I was supposed to be.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“The inauguration—I was supposed to be where Philip Schuyler was. I asked him if I could stand next to Thomas instead.” He shakes his head. “If I’d been where he was, the infected would’ve gotten to me before I knew what was happening.”</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t know what to say.</p><p>It’s the eternal <em> why me </em>question. He can’t answer it for himself, let alone for someone else.</p><p>“She wouldn’t blame you,” Hamilton finally tells him. “It wasn’t anything but chance.”</p><p>He doesn’t believe the last part. But it’s what he’s supposed to say, one of the platitudes that’s supposed to make them all feel better—one that stopped working a long time ago.</p><p>Madison just sighs.</p><p>Their silence is only broken when the door swings back open, obnoxious whistling announcing Jefferson’s return. Hamilton readies himself to deal with Jefferson’s bitching—<em>fucking ramen, again, seriously?—</em>but Jefferson sweeps into the room in one of his good moods. Surprisingly, he heads to Hamilton first, all but ignores Madison. Flashing white teeth, Jefferson unceremoniously drops a six-pack onto the table with a loud, glassy <em>clunk. </em>Hamilton looks up, surprised. Jefferson’s shirt is stained with dark blood—not his own, thankfully—and his hands are fucking filthy, like he’s spent hours digging through cobwebs and dusty cupboards.</p><p>“Happy fuckin’ birthday,” Jefferson tells him, vaguely distasteful as he looks at the beer.</p><p>It’s Sam Adams’ brand, but it’s the shitty tier that broke students buy to imitate classiness at mixers. Hamilton looks up at Jefferson, and—even though it’s clearly performative niceness, clearly done solely for the sake of Hamilton’s birthday—for the first time, Jefferson doesn’t seem half-fucking-bad. Maybe he did make a New Years resolution; Hamilton imagines <em>try not to be such a raging prick </em>scribbled in Jefferson's spidery cursive.</p><p>His lips twist into a smile.</p><p>The beer <em> is </em> half-fucking bad— <em> Hamilton </em> , <em> seriously? You actually like this shit? I wouldn’t use this to thin the fucking paint on my car— </em>but Hamilton has missed the taste of gas station alcohol, missed the simple comfort of pairing terrible beer with ten-cent ramen, missed sitting around a table and talking about law and politics and the opera and everything else under the sun.</p><p>After dinner, Hamilton watches as Madison and Jefferson give their goodbyes, leave for bed.</p><p>Through the thin walls, Hamilton can hear them murmuring. He picks up the occasional word, an odd phrase.</p><p>“<em> … sorry…. know that you…” </em></p><p>
  <em> “… forgive you. But… don’t… he’s… you didn’t see.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I know…. I wish… sooner… bad.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “My fault… immune… don’t know…” </em>
</p><p>And then, before the talking quiets down, as always:</p><p>
  <em> “I love you.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Love you too.” </em>
</p><p>Maybe Hamilton doesn't hear it—at this point, maybe he just imagines it.</p><p>Hamilton’s the last one awake.</p><p>He sits alone in the kitchen drinking a while longer. He thinks.</p><p>As far as birthdays go, it could be worse.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton would never say it aloud, but he’s sometimes a little relieved that Jefferson and Madison are so undyingly in love. He’s around them all the damn time and doesn’t want to hear them constantly bitch, sure, but that’s not the extent of it—truth it, their relationship is one of the only things left in the world that still makes sense.</p><p>(Even if watching them sometimes stabs something sharp through his lungs, makes his fingers tighten around the photo strip ever-present in his pocket).</p><p>It’s sad that someone else’s relationship is the steadiest thing in Hamilton’s life, and it’s sad that the relationship belongs to the two most fucking ridiculous people in the damn world, but damn if it’s not some kind of stability in the shitshow that the world’s become.</p><p>Of course, Jefferson’s consistent jackassery is also a point of stability.</p><p>At least it’s finally too cold for him to do yoga shirtless.</p><p>But Jefferson is nothing if not persistent; he finds alternatives.</p><p>One afternoon, metallic clanks draw Hamilton down into a basement. He’s half-sure he’s going to find an infected rattling around in chains or something equally fucked up, but it’s Jefferson that greets Hamilton in an unfurnished room, surrounded by gym equipment. Jefferson barely pays him any attention as he enters until he’s finished a set of deadlifts, drops the bar with a resounding <em>clank.</em></p><p>“Yeah?” Jefferson asks, irritable.</p><p>He’s shirtless—because of course he is, he's an asshole—and Hamilton is almost too busy being pissed off by that to notice the bar and—<em>holy shit, that’s a lot of weight.</em></p><p>“Are you fucking allergic to wearing clothes?” Hamilton asks the second he recovers, plastering a scowl over his surprise.</p><p>He’s too late: Jefferson’s lips twist into the smirk Hamilton’s always so tempted to knock off his face. He crosses his arms over his chest, regards Hamilton with amusement.</p><p>“Is Madison around?”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“I need a spotter.” Jefferson swaggers over to a bench press, arches his brows. “Well?”</p><p>“He’s meditating. What, you want me to get him for you?”</p><p>“Hell no,” Jefferson says, incredulous. “Even I’m not that goddamned stupid. Just come over here and do it for me. You’ve been in a gym before right? You know what spotting is?”</p><p>“Yes. I’ve been in a gym. But why the hell would I help <em>you?” </em></p><p>“I’ll play chess with you,” Jefferson offers. “And don’t pretend like you don’t want to. I know you’re bored out of your damn mind. You’re out of things to read, and whoever lived here clearly maxed out their capacity for intellectual stimulation with <em> Twilight. </em>”</p><p>Hamilton wants to turn him down out of principle, but Jefferson’s—unfortunately—right. So he sourly walks over, rounds to the head of the bench. Jefferson strips the weights off his deadlift bar, loads them onto the bar over the bench; Hamilton pretends like he hasn’t tallied up the final weight. He’s not going to give Jefferson the satisfaction.</p><p>“Alright,” Jefferson says, sliding onto the bench beneath him. He shifts his hands, pushes the bar over his chest. “I’m doing three sets, six reps. Should be fine.”</p><p>Jefferson heaves up—<em>one, two, three… six. </em>He replaces the bar with a gust of air tearing out of his mouth, sits up.</p><p>“Fuck, I miss the gym,” he laments, swiping an arm over his sweating brow. “I had Monticello remodeled right before all this, got a home gym installed." His face falls; Hamilton remembers Jefferson yelling something about arson, something about Redcoats, feels a wash of sympathy despite himself. "<em>Damn— </em>I was looking forward to having that.”</p><p>“You realize how you sound to me, right? <em>Oh, I'm so sad that I didn't get to use the gym I paid a million-something dollars to have built in my McMansion."</em></p><p>Jefferson huffs a laugh, swipes the water bottle by the bench.</p><p>“Where’d you grow up?” Jefferson asks, unusually conversational; Hamilton chalks it up to exercise-induced exhaustion.</p><p>“In the British West Indies,” he answers despite himself, “on an island called Nevis.”</p><p>“Sounds tropical.”</p><p>Tropical enough for hurricanes. Tropical enough to be ravaged by yellow fever. Tropical enough for his mother to take him to the beach every weekend, to teach him how to swim, to—</p><p>Hamilton looks away.</p><p>“It was.”</p><p>Jefferson slides back under the bar: <em>one, two, three, four… </em>He pauses a second before five, then a second longer before six, but makes it and reracks the bar. He’s breathing heavily, sweating.</p><p>It’s a waste of energy in Hamilton’s opinion. He believes that there’s an element of practicality behind it, sure, concedes that Jefferson’s probably the strongest of the three of them—but Hamilton’s also not an idiot. There’s no way in hell he believes that Jefferson’s motivations aren’t tainted by vanity either. The man wears a Rolex in the apocalypse, for fuck’s sake.</p><p>“What was it like?” Jefferson asks after a long drink, and Hamilton has to backtrack to remember what they were talking about.</p><p>“It was alright,” Hamilton answers, even though it’s mostly a lie. “New York was better.”</p><p>“I always hated New York,” Jefferson scowls.  “Only place worse than fuckin’ New York is Boston. Oh, and Philadelphia. God, what I wouldn’t have given to move the capital further South.”</p><p>“You've got some pretty strong opinions on Boston.”</p><p>“Yeah, 'cause it's a complete shithole. The only thing worth a damn that ever came out of there was Sam Adams.”</p><p>Hamilton’s mind goes back to the outbreak; he doesn’t remember seeing the Massachusetts Representative there, but the implication in Jefferson’s voice is clear. Hamilton thinks for a second: weeks ago, Jefferson told him all his friends were dead. Is that better or worse than being where Hamilton is? Is it better to know everyone you loved is gone? Or is it better to delude yourself into thinking everyone’s still out there somewhere, still breathing, still waiting to see you again?</p><p>In the end, Hamilton decides it doesn’t matter—he's going to London. Even if his friends are alive, he’ll never see them again.</p><p>“Last set,” Jefferson says.</p><p><em>One. Two. Three. </em>Jefferson’s arms shake on four. Five, he only gets halfway up, stops to gasp; Hamilton’s fingers curl around the bar—</p><p>“I’ve got it,” Jefferson grits out through bared teeth.</p><p><em>Five. </em>He rests a long moment before trying six, fails, then tries again out of what must be sheer ego when Hamilton reaches down to stop the bar from crushing him alive. This time, he makes it. The bar <em>clunks </em>into place.</p><p>Jefferson makes no effort to move, splayed out exhausted on the bench. Hamilton doesn't notice the broad chest, the strong arms, the way sweat trickles down the curve of his throat.</p><p>“Alright,” Jefferson finally gets out. “Now squats?”</p><p>Half an hour later, a washed-up Jefferson meets Hamilton in a study. Madison’s on his third hour of meditation in the foyer, and, if nothing else, they’re both clearly united by a desire not to fuck with that. Jefferson sets up the chess board, takes a seat opposite Hamilton.</p><p>“Have you ever played chess before?” Jefferson drawls, brows raised as Hamilton looks over the board, calling back the passages from the book he got months prior.</p><p>“It’s been a while,” he lies.</p><p>He recalls a strategy, moves his knight; Jefferson stares, calculates, then smiles lazily. He moves a pawn.</p><p>Pawn. Rook. Bishop. Pawn. Queen. Knight. Pawn. Pawn. Queen.</p><p>“Checkmate,” Jefferson declares eleven moves in, smugly leaning back in his chair.</p><p>Hamilton does a double-take, examines the board, shock seeping in. Jefferson's anticipated every move he was going to make, somehow countered each time.</p><p>“What?” the other man drawls, leaning in with a grin that brings a crocodile to mind. “You think I didn’t see your little <em> Chess for Beginners </em>book?”</p><p> </p><hr/><p>            </p><p>Karma acts quickly for once, gets Jefferson back the next morning as they eat.</p><p>Jefferson makes some grand gesture as he talks about something Hamilton doesn’t care about, knocking his shotgun to the floor in the process. It clatters against the ground; Jefferson’s face twists. Hamilton barely even pays attention until Madison speaks up in French.</p><p><em> “Something wrong?” </em>Madison asks in a voice that reveals he already knows the exact answer.</p><p><em> “Jemmy, sweetheart, sunshine, light of my life, will you pretty please pick that up for me?” </em>Jefferson evades the question, smiling too sweet.</p><p>
  <em> “Why can’t you?” </em>
</p><p>Jefferson heaves a resigned sigh.</p><p><em> “Because I’m going to cry if I have to bend over,” </em>he admits, vaguely shamed.</p><p><em> “Yes, and you would deserve it,” </em> Madison tells him, rolling his eyes as he leans over to scoop it off the ground. <em> “Maybe you wouldn’t be so sore if you didn’t try to show off so much.” </em></p><p>
  <em> “I wasn’t showing off!” </em>
</p><p><em> “Thomas, I’ve </em> seen <em> you add fifty pounds to a barbell just because you noticed someone watching you.” </em></p><p>Jefferson scoffs, but looks away instead of denying the allegation. Hamilton hides his mouth in his coffee mug, barely suppressing a snicker. What a fucking asshat.</p><p>Someday, he’ll reveal he knows French; that day isn’t today.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Unpacking the trunk is always a fucking experience. Madison is pretty good at keeping things organized, but he usually lets (read: makes) Jefferson and Hamilton haul things in and out when they’re stopping somewhere for the night—which means they fuck up Madison’s order trying to cram things back inside. Anyway—point is, Hamilton finds and rediscovers random shit all the time.</p><p>It’s the end of February, it’s cold and dark outside, and Hamilton is rummaging through the trunk trying to find their canned food: tonight’s cuisine is saltines and tuna. He knocks another box out of the way, frustration overtaking them. Jefferson is similarly irritated behind him if the increasingly short intervals between his heaving sighs are anything to go by.</p><p>Hamilton knocks another case aside, reveals half a dozen containers of fucking—he narrows his eyes, grabs one to figure out just what he’s about to complain about. He scowls as he reads the label.</p><p>Madison joins them.</p><p>“Why the <em> fuck </em> is there so much coconut oil back here? I mean, seriously—there’s like a fucking gallon of it,” Hamilton complains. “In five fucking months, I’ve never seen either of you use it to cook once.”</p><p>Madison leaves.</p><p>Jefferson’s eyeing him with vague amusement when Hamilton turns. He reaches forward, plucks the container out of Hamilton’s hand, and returns it to the trunk.</p><p>“Yeah, it’s not for cooking,” Jefferson flatly drawls. "It's for another verb that ends in i-n-g."</p><p>Hamilton stands there for a second until the realization dawns—then walks the fuck away.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>January gives way to February.</p><p>It’s cold outside. It’s <em> been </em>cold outside, but as they creep north, it gets colder. Colder than New York, colder than winter should ever have any right to be. The temperature drops below freezing, then into single digits—drips briefly back into double digits, but on the wrong side of zero.</p><p>Hamilton is too cold to sleep well most nights even if they’re able to find a bed. It’s worse in the Escalade. There’re three rows of seats inside: two in the front, two in the middle, three in the back. The back row is usually stuffed with supplies, but Madison and Jefferson rearrange things until there’s room to lie down, then hunker down there during nights when there’s nowhere to stop. Hamilton migrates into one of the front seats, tries not to freeze alive. Even with half a dozen blankets, it’s impossible. The chill settles into his fingers, his hands and feet, gradually ices him over every night. In the mornings, he's cold, blue, frosted over.</p><p>He layers and layers and layers. They stop in busted-out clothing stores, find more jackets, coats, parkas. Hamilton wears undershirts, shirts, sweatshirts, parkas.</p><p>It’s never enough.</p><p>He’s always cold, always freezing, always on the brink of frostbite.</p><p>Madison and Jefferson glue themselves to one another to ward off the cold; Hamilton freezes alone.</p><p>But they push on and manage—until it snows.</p><p>A colorless sky hangs low above them. Flakes begin to fall in the morning—and by the time afternoon rolls around, even with four-wheel drive, they’re forced to pull over. A few miles off the highway, they pull into the driveway of a fenced-off ranch.</p><p>“How long do you think it’s gonna snow for?” Jefferson asks as they get out of the car, toeing the inches of powder piled up on the ground already.</p><p>“Well shit, let me just consult my crystal ball,” Hamilton heckles him. “It says: fuck if I know anything about meteorology.”</p><p>“I miss the fuckin’ weather app."</p><p>The house has three infected. Jefferson draws them all out with a whistle, bottlenecking them in the foyer. They’re no match for the three of them, and they go down fast: knife, knife, arrow. Hamilton's getting good at shooting now, honing his skills.</p><p>He offers to drag them outside, lets Madison and Jefferson unload the trunk.</p><p>The first infected is barely five feet; Hamilton refuses to think of what that means. The second was a man once; even dead for real, he stares up at Hamilton with unblinking yellow eyes. The last is—well, Hamilton doesn’t know. The fungus has grown over its face so badly Hamilton can’t determine anything: gender, age—nothing. It’s horrifying. The infection has split its face in two, opened a deep crevasse that stretches from between its eyes down to its chin; through the gap, out bursts shoots of yellow-orange-grey cordyceps fungus.</p><p>It’s been infected a long, long time—maybe since the beginning.</p><p>Hamilton spares a moment to wonder just what happens as the infection ages There’s no frame of reference. They’re not even two years in; what happens to the infected after five years? Ten? Do the infected eventually become so corrupted by the infection they perish, too degraded to stay alive?</p><p><em> Probably not </em>, Hamilton cynically thinks. That would be too easy.</p><p>He dumps all the bodies a few dozen yards away from the house, rubs his hands and arms clean with snow. It doesn’t matter—he’s already too cold to even really feel it.</p><p>He returns to the house. Madison is working on getting a fire started in the fireplace, but there’s only a few logs cut up on the porch: the fire won’t burn for more than a couple hours.</p><p>By the time Hamilton tries to fall asleep beside it, it's out, little more than glowing embers.</p><p>Hamilton gives up on sleep after hours have cooled the cinders to nothing. He disentangles himself from the mass of blankets he’s built on the floor and pads into the kitchen, finds their camping stove<em> . </em>A fresh blast of icy air hits him when he goes outside. He’s so damn cold by the time he’s scraped snow into the pot that it slips out of his shaking hands when he comes back inside. It hits the tile with a deafening clatter so loud enough it scares even him—and he dropped the damn thing in the first place.</p><p>Hamilton glances to the hallway, waiting for one or both of them to burst in with their guns raised, aroused by the sound.</p><p>Madison doesn’t disappoint: he materializes in the door-frame at near light-speed with his shotgun in hand, looking a little alarmed and more than a little weary.</p><p>“Hamilton?” he asks, exhaustion plain in his voice. He’s irritated, but gentler than he usually is when he’s woken up, words inflected with that ever-present pity. “What in God’s name are you doing awake?”</p><p>“I’m trying,” Hamilton replies, his teeth chattering so badly on the <em> t </em> that he has to try again before he gets it right <em> . </em>“I’m trying to make myself coffee.”</p><p>“At <em> three </em>. In. The. Morning?”</p><p>Hamilton bends over, struggles to pick up the pot with stiff fingers.</p><p>“Jesus, Madison, can’t you just leave me the hell alone? I can’t sleep, alright? Just go back to bed.”</p><p>Madison reaches down and picks up the pot for him, sets it onto the counter. He stares Hamilton down a moment, then shakes his head and heaves a pitying sigh.</p><p>“Hamilton, look—the bed is big enough for the three of us. You’re welcome to come and sleep on the other side if it’ll keep you from getting frostbite. You'll shoot better with all your fingers intact.”</p><p>“There’s no way in hell I’m going to—"</p><p>Jefferson staggers still half-asleep into the kitchen, cutting crankily into their conversation.</p><p>“Christ, Hamilton, it’s the middle of the night. I know your pride’s shoved so far up your ass you’re choking on it, but just come to fuckin’ bed and bitch later, I swear to God.” He rubs a hand over his face, swaying sleepily. A little more alertness works its way into his face. “You know what? Fuck you—I don’t care. I’m too tired for this. Freeze your ass off if you want. ”</p><p>Jefferson doesn’t stay and wait to hear Hamilton’s response, doesn't even consult with Madison. He just turns and leaves.</p><p>Hamilton weighs his choices, the chances of getting frostbite if he goes back to bed alone. The more he thinks about it, the more the idea appeals to him—which speaks to the state he’s in. He’s so tired and so cold he’s lost all his damn common sense—and he’s conscious of that in some distant part of his mind, but as he watches Jefferson retreat, looks back to a not-shivering Madison, all he can think about is how warm the bed must be with the two of them.</p><p><em> Surviving— </em> his mind chimes. <em>Staying alive.</em></p><p>That’s what does him in.</p><p>He trails after Jefferson, Madison sweeping in behind him. Jefferson doesn’t turn around, but Hamilton is half-convinced he doesn’t just imagine the way Jefferson’s shoulders relax a little at the sound of his footsteps. The room is dark and quiet when Jefferson cracks the door back open, practically flings himself back into bed until he’s buried back beneath a furnace of pillow and blankets. Madison is a little more practical about it, sliding past Hamilton and setting his revolver onto the nightstand first.</p><p>“Jemmy, c’mere,” Jefferson murmurs, his voice muffled and sleep-rough. “Fuck Hamilton<em>—</em> <em> I’m </em>cold.”</p><p>“I know, baby,” Madison replies, more loving than Hamilton’s ever heard. His eyes are unguarded this late at night, filled with unrestrained warmth. He slides into bed, presses a drowsy kiss to the back of Jefferson’s neck. In slow, sleepy French, he murmurs: <em> “He was trying to make coffee.” </em></p><p>
  <em> “Freezing his ass off just to spite us, huh?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “So it would seem.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “The fire’s out?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Mm.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I’ll find some way to cut more wood tomorrow.” </em>
</p><p>Hamilton shifts in the doorway, feeling like an intruder. He shouldn’t be here—shouldn’t be listening to this conversation. He doesn’t belong here, doesn’t belong in this little niche they’ve carved out for themselves in the world. He should go back to the floor by the fireplace, rough it out.</p><p>He almost does.</p><p>“Close the fucking door,” Jefferson complains to Hamilton, adopting a familiar annoyed cadence as he switches back to English. Madison makes a noise of agreement. “You’re letting the warm air out.”</p><p>And, after a moment’s hesitation, Hamilton does.</p><p>The bed is warm. So fucking warm. Even as far right, as far away as he can get without straight-up falling off the bed, Hamilton feels like he’s not freezing for the first time in weeks.</p><p>Gradually, he stops shaking. Gradually, he even begins to drift off, distantly aware of the soft breathing mere feet away.</p><p>Sleep finally takes him.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Light reflects blindingly off the snow piled up outside, bathes the room in sterile white.</p><p>Hamilton blinks drowsily. He wakes up and drifts back off more than once, but finally, a sound nearby stings him into consciousness. He jerks up, eyes searching for a threat, weighing his surroundings. It takes him a second to realize the sound came not from an infected, but from one of the men beside him. He blinks at the two as it hits him where he is.</p><p>Madison has turned over in his sleep, faces him. Jefferson’s face is pressed into the crook of his neck, an arm slung possessively over his chest to hold him fast. They’re sleeping together softly, the rise and fall of their chests the only movement in the room at all. It’s more intimate than the kisses they steal over breakfast, than the way they can make the other crack a smile with the vaguest turn of phrase, than the reassuring brush of fingers over knuckles after a particularly harrowing run-in with the infected. Even in unconsciousness, they’re holding onto each other like the other’s the last damn thing tethering him to earth.</p><p>The sight fills Hamilton with a familiar, cutting loss. Scoops out his heart, hollows his chest.</p><p>He shouldn’t be here.</p><p>Quietly, Hamilton disentangles himself from the sheets, slides out of the bed—and the recurring cold returns, hits him all that much harder now that he’s had something warm to compare it to.</p><p>He makes breakfast: oatmeal. They’re running low, only have another couple scoops left—he cuts his portion, figuring he can make the box stretch another couple days. Jefferson and Madison emerge from the bedroom just as he’s spooning the oatmeal into the bowls.</p><p>“How long have you been up?” Jefferson asks, running a hand over his face.</p><p>“A couple hours,” Hamilton lies.</p><p>“Did you sleep any?”</p><p>“Not for long. You were snoring too fucking loudly.”</p><p>Madison peers into the bowls, notes how they’re filled—his mouth twitches downwards. He takes the bowl Hamilton was going to give himself.</p><p>Hamilton almost protests, but he stops short. What exactly is he going to say?</p><p>“I don’t fucking snore,” Jefferson denies before Hamilton can think up an excuse.</p><p>“So it was Madison?”</p><p>“Leave me out of this,” the man in question says, though there’s more amusement than actual annoyance in his voice. “Indulge me: I just want to eat breakfast in silence. It's too early for your bickering.”</p><p>Jefferson huffs a laugh, drops into the seat beside him. He stabs his oatmeal viciously, but he’s apparently in a good mood this morning because he makes conversation with the two of them.</p><p>“I’m so fucking tired of oatmeal and cereal and rice and canned food all the time.”</p><p>“Oh, shit,” Hamilton dryly apologizes, sliding easily back into more familiar territory. This, he knows how to deal with. “I’m so sorry—let me go get your fucking filet mignon.”</p><p>“Like you don’t bitch about missing your foam art lattes and avocado and toast, you fucking Millennial.”</p><p>“Thomas, <em> we’re </em>Millennials.”</p><p>“Yeah, by like a year,” Jefferson scoffs, shaking his head. “Jesus, though—I would <em> kill </em>for some fucking variety. I want to go—I don’t know—fishing or something. If it wasn’t so damn cold, I’d go out with Hamilton and scrounge up some fucking protein. I miss meat so damn much. Jemmy, remember that one place we used to go to? The one in Richmond?”</p><p>That statement throws Hamilton back off-kilter, throws him off his balance. He’s more aware than ever of where he stands.</p><p>Hamilton is a cure.</p><p>He’s not their friend. He’s their moral obligation.          </p><p>And even before he was bitten, that’s all he was. He was alone and pathetic and on the brink—and they dragged him along out of pity. Hell, they’ve probably just been waiting for a chance to get rid of him, to offload him onto someone else. His immunity is probably a damn blessing. He’s an aberration in their routine; they don’t need him.</p><p>"Of course," Madison tells him. "You complained about the sommeliers every time we went."</p><p>The two of them fall back into reminiscent conversation.</p><p>Hamilton stays silent and eats his fucking oatmeal.</p><p>He must give something away because at one point, Jefferson watches him a moment, then shakes it off and continues his conversation with Madison.</p><p>(Hamilton thinks of the shoes Jefferson got him, of how Madison took the noticeably emptier bowl, of how the bed was the first time he’d been warm in weeks.)</p><p>It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care.</p><p>The road ends in Boston.</p><p>Hamilton shivers himself to sleep—alone—until the snow melts.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><em> Welcome to Massachusetts, </em>the sign at the side of the road reads.</p><p>Boston appears on the green signs hanging over the highways; the number next to the name gradually dwindles. The future creeps closer. Time ticks away.</p><p>
  <em> Boston: Ten Miles Ahead. </em>
</p><p>The world’s worst road-trip is coming to an end.</p><p>“How are we going to play this?” Hamilton asks them both, reminding himself he's ready to leave.</p><p>Madison and Jefferson exchange a look, a brief conversation in French.</p><p>“We’ll escort you just shy of a checkpoint,” Madison says in English after a few moments, oblivious that Hamilton's already heard the plan. "We can’t go any further than that. Someone’ll recognize us.”</p><p>They pull off at the next exit, stash the car. Hamilton takes his pack, unloads his things from the trunk one last time. He has his pistol, his clothes, his photo strip in his pocket. The trunk closes.</p><p>Hamilton lays a hand on the cold black exterior of the Escalade one last time. It’s been his home as much as anywhere in the past few months, and he has to leave it behind too. It’s stupid to get sentimental over a car, but—Hamilton closes his eyes and pulls his hand away.</p><p>He looks back to Madison and Jefferson, finds Madison expectantly holding out his compound bow; Hamilton didn’t want to bother taking it with him.</p><p>“Keep it,” he tells Madison, looking away. “I won’t need it, right? You all might.”</p><p>In England, he’ll be safe. As a lab rat, he won’t hurt for food or shelter or safety. Gone are his days on the gone. Gone is the sweet, terrible freedom of having the world at his fingertips, endless possibilities stretching in every direction. Hamilton’s life isn’t his own any longer; he cedes it to the British. For love of his country. For love of a cure.</p><p>It doesn’t bother him.</p><p>New York is gone. Laurens is dead. His legacy is dead before it ever began. He has nothing.</p><p>But everything that’s happened can’t be for nothing.</p><p>Hamilton turns to Boston and begins to walk, Jefferson and Madison on either side of him. The Redcoats seem to have at least done a little housekeeping; even though they’re close to what was once major city, the infected are thin here. A few freshly turned shamble in their path every now and then with mouths opened wide in piercing shrieks, but the three of them deal with them summarily.</p><p>Hamilton wonders about England as they walk. He tries to call up the rumors he’s heard of King George since the outbreak, but his mind comes up short. He thinks he remembers something about Queen Charlotte, about her demise. He’s never been a fan of royalty, but the queen always seemed alright, the somewhat more balanced counterpart to the king.</p><p>“Did you ever meet the King?” Hamilton asks absentmindedly as they walk.</p><p>“A few times,” Jefferson answers. “He was alright. Kind of fidgety. A little paranoid, but understandably so since, you know, I went on to write the Declaration of Independence.”</p><p>“I still think he’s gay,” Madison speaks up in a voice that suggests he and Jefferson have had this conversation a dozen times before.</p><p>“He has, like, a dozen kids.”</p><p>“Which is perfectly in-line with the repressed people we used to work with," Madison says at the same time Hamilton chimes in with a halfhearted jab: "Yeah, he almost gets laid as much as you do."</p><p>"Hamilton, if you think I won't—"</p><p>Hamilton lets their bickering fade into the background, searches his memory. It’s astonishing how fast all the faces from his pre-outbreak life have faded out of his mind, but he pulls up an image of a well-dressed red-headed man speaking to a crowd of reporters, a little neurotic, a lot British. In his memories, the man feeds lies into the microphone: <em> oh, the colonies benefit from our relationship, oh, we made an arrangement when the first settlers went away, oh, the colonies need no army—the Redcoats will protect you in the case that military force is needed. </em></p><p>Yeah, fat fucking lie.</p><p>(Hamilton feels a little pity for the man, though; watching his most important colonies declare independence, then watching the colony’s leaders ripped apart in the first wave, then losing his wife and so much of his family all within an hour<em>—</em>what a fucking nightmare of a day it must've been).</p><p>“You’ll be fine, Hamilton,” Madison reassures him. Hamilton looks over like he hasn’t missed the last five minutes of conversation and nods. “The King’s a reasonable enough man. I doubt things would’ve come to blows with England; the harm would’ve outweighed the benefits.”</p><p>"Bullshit," Hamilton replies. "If we went, so would half the rest of the world."</p><p>He realizes they’ve stopped.</p><p>Hamilton realizes that they’re at the end of the line. This is it—they’re only a mile or two out of the city. The highway’s twenty yards away, just on the other side of a line of trees. Madison and Jefferson have taken him as far as they’re willing to go.</p><p>He’s on his own now.</p><p>“Well,” Hamilton says after a moment. It's only a word, but it's bitter and heavy in his mouth.</p><p>Hamilton wonders if it’s the last time he’ll ever see them. He can’t know for sure. There’s too much uncertainty, too many unknown variables. Maybe he makes it to England; maybe he doesn’t. Maybe Madison and Jefferson will be fine on their own; maybe their luck runs out. Hamilton doesn’t know. Chances are he never will.</p><p>Even if there is a cure, what then? Do the rest of the Redcoats come back? If they do, the country’s decimated, the population cut to almost nothing. America won’t be able to mount an army against a trained, highly funded force like the Redcoats, even if the army's numbers are down to a quarter of what they were pre-outbreak—maybe even a tenth. The revolutionaries will have to go underground, consign themselves back to the bowels of occupied cities instead of the open air, the podiums of the people.</p><p>And that will mean Madison and Jefferson are still officially traitors of the highest order. They’ll probably never be able to show their faces in public again if they don’t want to risk a swift arrest, a swift trial, a swift execution.</p><p>And Hamilton—where is he ten years from now? Still in England? Dead? Will extracting a cure kill him? The infection's in the brain, cracks through skulls and grows over faces. If the cure's in his brain, then what happens to him?</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t know what to say. He’s nauseous, sick to his stomach.</p><p>“You know,” he finally tells Jefferson, “it might be the only thing worth a shit you’ve ever done, but I actually thought the Declaration was pretty fucking good.”</p><p>Jefferson snorts, but the suggestion of a smile takes root at the edge of his mouth. Hamilton does his best to return the gesture.</p><p>“Yeah, well, I thought you laying out Henry Laurens was pretty fuckin’ good too,” Jefferson says.</p><p>Hamilton turns to Madison, to his pitying eyes, his pitying, forced smile.</p><p>He shakes Madison’s hand—formal, only the slightest hint of warmth slipping through when Madison’s hand lingers a moment too long.</p><p>“Hamilton,” Madison tentatively says. He hesitates. There’s something he wants to say that he isn’t; Madison finally shakes his head, shoving it away. “Look after yourself.”</p><p>Hamilton looks between the two of them one last time.</p><p>An inkling of an absurd thought pulls at the fringes of Hamilton's consciousness; he pushes it away.</p><p>“Thanks,” at last he says, “for getting me to Boston.”</p><p>The two exchange one of their still-indecipherable eye contact conversations, then look one last time back at Hamilton, each offering a final smile that doesn’t quite reach their eyes.</p><p>And then they go their separate ways: Hamilton off to England, and the two of them head back off into the country none of them ever had the chance to build.</p><p>Only they don’t.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The Redcoats come from nowhere.</p><p>There’s a flash in the tree-line. Their heads all whip around, hands reaching for guns—and then there’s movement to their left, to their right, behind them. Red blurs around them, men and women burst out from trees, rifles aimed. They rush forwards, pushing them back, pushing them into a circle with their backs against each other, their hands frozen halfway to their weapons.</p><p>“Don’t move!” one of the Redcoats yells.</p><p>Hamilton thinks about moving.</p><p>His pistol is just in his waistband, a half-second draw—his hand twitches, but he forces himself to still. Hamilton counts. <em> One, two, three— </em>ten. Ten Redcoats surrounding them. Hamilton can take down ten people if he has the drop on them, more if he can do it quietly. He can’t take down ten when ten guns are already trained on him, just looking for an excuse. He could take one or two to hell with him, but the rest would blow holes in his chest first.</p><p>“Hands up,” a Redcoat orders.</p><p>Jefferson and Madison consult in rapid-fire French whispers.</p><p>
  <em> “I counted ten.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “As did I.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “What do we do?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “At the moment, hope for the best—what else can we do?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Jesus, I’m not going out on my fucking knees!” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I didn’t say we weren't going to fight. Just not now.” </em>
</p><p>One of the Redcoats orders them to stop with a jab of their bayonet; they fall quiet.</p><p>“So,” Jefferson says after a few moments. He smiles lazy and white, insolence dripping off of every word in a way that makes Hamilton’s lips twitch. “Y’all come here often?”</p><p>“I can’t fucking believe it,” a voice proclaims. “When one of my men called in to tell me they saw James Madison and Thomas Jefferson wandering through the woods, I thought they’d broken into the rum.”</p><p>Madison tenses up; Jefferson freezes. The voice is vaguely familiar, niggles at the back of Hamilton’s mind. He dissects the voice: male, brazen, violently English—too affected, too posh, too pronounced to be genuine. It’s a mask, a façade of Britishness that would almost be convincing if it weren’t so absurdly overstated. The speaker is behind him, facing Jefferson and Madison—but not him.</p><p>“<em> You </em> can’t fucking believe it?” Jefferson asks—and Jesus, he’s pissed: his voice is polished smooth, a pretense of calm half a second away from shattering. A moment passes. It shatters. “ <em> You can’t fucking believe it?” </em></p><p>Hamilton turns around in time to see Jefferson lunging forward, Redcoats be damned—Hamilton and Madison slam forward at the same time, Hamilton grabbing Jefferson’s arms, Madison slamming the three of them to the ground. A gunshot rings out; Hamilton tenses, prepares for the explosion of white pain, yellow skies—but none comes. No one around them falls either; the shooter’s missed.</p><p>Hamilton looks up, finds Benedict Arnold aiming at where Jefferson was an instant ago.</p><p>“Stop fucking moving,” Hamilton hisses in Jefferson’s ear, fighting to keep him against the ground.</p><p>“He <em> killed </em> my fucking <em> brother</em>, let me <em> go,</em> <em>I’m going to rip his fucking throat out </em>—”</p><p>Madison clamps a hand over Jefferson’s mouth, looks up at Arnold with undisguised hatred in his eyes.</p><p>It’s the first time Hamilton realizes that Madison has never hated him.</p><p>Madison has never <em> liked </em>him, per se—but what’s burning in Madison’s eyes right now is new, fills Hamilton’s heart with ice. Hamilton has never seen Madison kill a human. Infected, sure, but never someone with light still in their eyes.</p><p>Hamilton has. Several times: self-defense. But not since he’s been with either of them—and he’s never asked, never known if they have what it takes.</p><p>But in that moment, Hamilton knows Madison does. He would.</p><p>(Maybe he already has).</p><p>“Mister Arnold,” Madison says, his voice cold and empty. “It’s been a while.”</p><p>“Since Philadelphia,” Arnold agrees—again with the accent. He never spoke like that when the country elected him the Connecticut Representative. He never spoke like that on the Representative floor or when he gathered at separatist rallies, Jefferson and Madison and Washington at his side. He didn’t even speak like that the day of the outbreak in Philadelphia; that day, he was an appointed member of Washington’s Cabinet, still loyal to the country—<em> their country </em>. “It’s a pleasure.”</p><p>Hamilton never paid much attention to the news after the outbreak, but Benedict Arnold was one piece of news he was acutely familiar with. Arnold is <em>not </em>an American, never was, was always a lying, traitorous snake, didn't deserve to be on that stage in Philadelphia, doesn't deserve to be alive when the rest of them are dead—suddenly, he’s in danger of being the one Madison’s pinning to the ground. Madison reads his mind, reaches out, takes hold of his shoulder.</p><p>“He killed my fucking brother,” Jefferson snarls, yanking his face free of Madison’s hand. “He <em>knew. </em>He fucking <em>knew </em>that the Redcoats would shoot Washington’s motorcade, would shoot everyone that tried to leave the city. <em>He</em> <em>fucking</em> <em>knew! </em>He was with them right up until the last second—and then guess fucking what? Washington’s motorcade is fucking shot up, and he’s still alive, and he’s in charge of the Redcoats left behind, and everyone else is <em>dead!</em> <em>My fucking brother is dead!”</em></p><p>“Please, gentlemen,” Arnold says, “Let’s be civil about this.”</p><p>“Oh, we can be civil with my <em> foot up your ass!” </em>Jefferson yells.</p><p>Madison’s hand seals back over his mouth.</p><p>“I agree,” Madison says to Arnold. “Please, let’s go somewhere to discuss this further.”</p><p>Hamilton gets the very distinct intuition that if they’re not getting out of this alive, then Madison’s at least going to bring Arnold to hell with them.</p><p>Arnold signals his men.</p><p>Half of them rush forward, pull the three of them apart and up onto their feet, slap heavy cuffs around their wrists. The Redcoats search them, pull off Hamilton’s pack, divest them of their weapons. Jefferson’s shotgun is swept away; Madison’s revolver is taken. The Redcoats *pat down the three of them, take Hamilton’s switchblade and ammo, Jefferson’s backup handgun, have to stop at Madison: Madison has a knife in his coat, a knife in his waistband, a knife in his pocket, a knife tucked into his sock.</p><p>“You missed one,” Madison wryly tells the Redcoats.</p><p>It takes them five minutes to realize Madison’s fucking with them. A Redcoat starts to verge in on him, ticked off, but Arnold stops him with a raised hand.</p><p>“Come on, then. We’re all sophisticated, aren’t we?”</p><p>Hamilton’s eyes flicker instinctually to Jefferson. It’s then when he decides that Jefferson could kill a man too. Maybe not <em> any </em>man—but certainly this one.</p><p>“Well, you’re a fucking traitor, so…” Hamilton speaks up, looking back. "Honesty's a virtue, isn't it?"</p><p>Arnold’s eyes shift to him as if noticing him for the first time. His eyes narrow.</p><p>“<em> I’m </em>the traitor? I’m loyal to the Crown, same as I’ve always been. These two committed treason when they joined Washington’s little crusade and turned their backs on the king!”</p><p>“How much did they pay you?” Jefferson asks, dark and quiet, his accent smothering half the syllables the way it only does when he’s a second away from starting to swing. “Would hafta’ve been a lotta zeroes if it was gonna dig you out of that debt I know you were in. Your wife tell you to do it? Tell you she'd leave you if you didn't?”</p><p>Arnold’s head snaps back to him, fury flashing on his face.</p><p>“We were friends once, Thomas. I could’ve made your life much harder, you know—but I didn’t. You should be thanking me.”</p><p>“Me? Thanking some <em>no</em> <em>fuckin’</em> <em>name</em> from that shit-fuck-nothing colony Connecticut—”</p><p>“I know about you and Madison,” Arnold cuts him off.</p><p>Jefferson stops mid-sentence, his mouth still hanging open.</p><p>“What?” Arnold asks, vicious glee working into his smile. “Surprised? It was a silly thing that you gave you away, you know. But one day Madison was speaking on the floor, coughed, pulled out his handkerchief—and lo and behold,<em> T.J.</em> monogrammed on the bottom. I mused on that for a while, but it all fell into place from there.”</p><p>To everyone else, Madison is the spitting image of calm.</p><p>Hamilton can tell otherwise. Maybe he's gotten to know Madison better than he gives himself credit for.</p><p>Madison’s eyes scan their surroundings methodically—almost disinterestedly—counting enemies, judging weapons, playing out hundreds of scenarios in a second. But every time, he must come to the same conclusion as Hamilton—they’re outnumbered, outgunned, outmanned.</p><p>Madison’s jaw ticks.</p><p>“I think that’s enough,” he says to separate Jefferson and Arnold, his voice cool. “Will we be conducting any negotiations or not?”</p><p>Arnold turns to him, studies him, then turns back to the soldiers.</p><p>“Take these two back to Boston.” He turns to Hamilton, vague disdain on his face. “I don’t care about this one, but he’s not coming into the city. Do what you will.”</p><p>Hamilton’s not an idiot. He knows exactly what that’s a euphemism for. Redcoats grab Jefferson and Madison and start to haul them away. He stands there a second, panic gripping him fast.</p><p>“I’m immune!” he blurts out, the sound of his voice cutting through the air like a gunshot.</p><p>It’s so unexpected, so sudden that everyone’s eyes shift to him, Jefferson’s and Madison’s included. They share an uncertain, frightened look; Boston isn’t what any of them were hoping.</p><p>But they’re here now. It might be the last place they ever go. He’s in too deep to give up now, to get shot and die alone somewhere a mile outside of the city’s lines.</p><p>Hamilton’s fingers scramble at his collar. He tugs it down, exposes the hideous scar on his neck.</p><p>“I was bit—<em>six</em> <em>weeks ago.</em> Look—it’s healed over. I didn’t—I got sick, but I didn’t turn. I'm still human. I'm..." He swallows hard, wets his lips. "I’m immune.”</p><p>Silence weighs heavily over them all. Arnold slowly steps forward, one feet placed hesitantly in front of the other like he’s afraid Hamilton will suddenly go feral. When Hamilton doesn’t, desperation plain in his eyes, Arnold finally leans in, examines the bite. He pokes at the wound with the barrel of his gun in some kind of test. Hamilton flinches.</p><p>He knows what’ll happen if they don’t believe him.</p><p>Hamilton closes his eyes.</p><p>He waits.</p><p>“Jesus H. Christ,” Arnold finally says. “He’s immune. He’s really fucking immune.”</p><p>Arnold peels away, his eyes wide with wonder. Fascination. Hamilton recognizes quickly that it isn’t the good kind of interest—no, they’re all watching him with the cool, detached interest of someone looking at an artifact in a museum. Hamilton may as not be a person at all anymore: he’s a tool.</p><p>Hamilton swallows, reminds himself that this was always what awaited him.</p><p>The bitter taste doesn’t leave his mouth.</p><p>“Look, I’m just trying to get to England. The vaccine research’s there, isn’t it? I’m all you want—the two of them don’t have anything to do with this. Just take me.”</p><p>“Do you know each other?” Arnold asks them all, turning to Jefferson and Madison.</p><p>Hamilton opens his mouth.</p><p>“Fuck no,” Jefferson spits first, scowling at Hamilton with undisguised hatred. “We wouldn’t have even still fuckin’ been here if that bastard had never gotten in our way.” Hamilton’s teeth turn sour in his mouth. He doesn’t know what’s a lie. “What the fuck kind of trick is this? <em>Immunity?</em> You little piss-drinking motherfucker, just wait until I get my hands on you—"</p><p>Arnold ignores him, turning back to Hamilton. He walks around him once, twice, pauses in front just as a tall, broad soldier slips into the clearing<b>. </b>His coat is clean, violently red, perfectly tailored. Light glints off the golden insignia pinned to his chest.</p><p>“The perimeter’s clear, sir,” his deep voice announces.</p><p>Hamilton stands frozen, wide-eyed, horrified.</p><p>The soldier sees him.</p><p>They stare at each other. The moment feels like an eternity—but it can’t be, because Arnold is giving new orders, not even noticing the exchange.</p><p>“Right, then. The rest of you get Jefferson and Madison to the harbor. Keep a gun aimed at each of their heads and neither should give you much trouble. I’ll join you on the ride back.” He smiles at the pair, all vicious white teeth. “Let’s give them a swift send-off to our gracious King, shall we?”</p><p>The soldiers drag Jefferson to his feet, drag Madison away.</p><p>Their eyes meet only once before they're both gone.</p><p>Hamilton’s heart withers when it hits him that it’s as good of a goodbye as they’ll get.</p><p>“And as for you,” Arnold crows, rounding back on Hamilton. His eyes have regained some semblance of warmth, of reassurance. “Don’t you worry. We’ll have you on the soonest ship to the mainland. The three of you can walk into England together.” He leans forward, speaks into Hamilton’s ear. “You don’t really think I believe Jefferson, do you? But I’ll overlook that little lie for the sake of that bite, hm?”</p><p>He pulls away, smiling pleasantly at Hamilton’s blanching face. Then to the soldier, he orders,</p><p>“Get him to <em> The Majesty. </em>I want him out of the city as soon as possible—god forbid the anarchists stop us from taking the fucking cure out of this shithole.”</p><p>“Yes, sir,” the soldier tells him, not betraying any hint of emotion in his stance, his face, his voice.</p><p>“Oh,” Arnold says, “one more thing. Make sure the King knows I’ve got his favorite revolutionaries in my back pocket. I think we can expect a grand old promotion for this one, hm, lieutenant colonel?”</p><p>“I should hope so, sir.”</p><p>Arnold smiles and claps the man on the shoulder. Hamilton's vision floods with red: the red of a neck slashed open, the red of infected tearing into Laurens, the vivid, telling, traitorous red of the coat of the man in front of him.</p><p>“I hope,” Hamilton says slowly, “that you’ll get exactly what’s coming to you, Mister Mulligan.”</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>thank y'all so much for all the comments and kudos on the first chapter!!!!! i was honestly floored by the reception i got. i hope y'all will continue to stick with this fic and continue to comment!! i really do go through and read them all when i'm dreading writing another word :,))</p><p>thanks for reading!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. How Hard It Is To Lead</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The year is 2007. Hamilton is eighteen, overworked, stressed, sleep-deprived, about to get kicked out of his apartment, and to top it all off, he has exactly six fifty-one in his bank account.</p><p>He has three-part time minimum wage jobs. He rents illegally, pays eight hundred bucks a month to sleep on the ratty cough of a guy he doesn’t know, doesn’t like, who he’s pretty sure steals his stuff, who’s kicking him out tomorrow morning because he’s moving a girl in, and Hamilton is fucked. He has no money, no friends, barely has time to even think about the classes he’s just started at Columbia, and that’s what he came to New York to do in the first place.</p><p>Hamilton gets off his shift waiting tables, pulls a carton of cigarettes, starts smoking as he paces anxiously up and down the street. The pack gradually grows lighter in his hands as he smokes cigarette after cigarette, as he tries to come up with a plan. What’s he supposed to do? He has nowhere to go after tomorrow morning, no connections he can crash with, no money to hunker down in a hotel a couple days while he figures things out. Maybe he can secretly live out of the twenty-four-hour library, shower at the gym? The absurdity of the idea almost makes him laugh.</p><p>His lungs start to feel scratchy, filled with cotton. His fingers reach for another cigarette but scrape against cardboard. He’s out—<em>damnit— </em>and what’s worse, he doesn’t even have money to buy another if he wants to eat tonight.</p><p>Whatever. So he's not going to have dinner. It's all fine.</p><p>Hamilton resists the urge to kick the wall closest to him, ignores the nausea brought on by smoking the better part of a pack at once on an empty stomach.</p><p>He’ll figure this out, he tells himself. He’ll be fine.</p><p>Hamilton falls back against the side of a wall, lets his head drop back against the brick, closes his eyes. He’s going to be fine—he has to be.</p><p>“Hey, man,” a voice says. It takes Hamilton a second to realize the voice’s directed at him, a second longer to realize it's not chiding him. “Can I, like, get you a bagel or something?”</p><p>Hamilton’s eyes flicker open, take open the man standing a few feet away. The man is tall, broad, well-dressed, has a kind face and worried eyes.</p><p>“What?” Hamilton asks, confusion snaking through him.</p><p>“I work over there,” the man explains, pointing to a shop with <em> Mulligan’s Clothing Emporium </em>splashed over the door. Hamilton's a waiter only a few shops down, so he's familiar enough with the store. Once, he looked in its displays just long enough to realize that, as someone who can’t afford to shuffle through anything but the bargain bins at Goodwill, he had no business even breathing near the goods. “I’ve just seen you walk past through the window like seven hundred times in the past three hours. You look a little, uh... frazzled.”</p><p>Hamilton blinks, opens his mouth to defend himself—then thinks better of it. He hasn't eaten since the croissant he swiped from his shift at the cafe this morning. He's about to empty his bank account to try to smoke away his stress, so he's not too good to pass up free food. It's probably just a hook for a pyramid scheme. Hamilton can sit through a pyramid scheme pitch for a bagel.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, running a hand over his face. “A bagel would be great.”</p><p>The man smiles warmly, leads him a street over. On the way he introduces himself: Hercules Mulligan—the shop is probably his, Hamilton realizes—and he’s a tailor by trade, a New Yorker at heart. He speaks enthusiastically about Washington, about his enthusiasm that the man has just been nominated Speaker of the Representatives, inadvertently exposing himself as a separatist. Hamilton opens a little more after that, gives his name, his college, his major.</p><p>“This’s the best bagel store in New York,” Hercules explains as they approach the storefront.</p><p>“Doesn’t everyone say that about the store they go to?”</p><p>“Yeah, but this one’s the best.”</p><p>Hercules buys him a bagel and a coffee too—<em>no, I insist, please— </em>and they sit. Hamilton is too tired, too stressed, lets Hercules handle most of the talking. Hamilton waits for the trick to reveal itself, but it doesn't. Hercules just makes conversation, smiles, asks Hamilton about his home—gracefully changing the subject when Hamilton's shoulders tighten—then talks about New York, about his job, about politics. Hamilton straightens a little, engages, finds it in himself to smile when he and Hercules rail against the Crown, rally for the colonies. Hercules talks about his clients, somehow manages to humbly name-drop politicians like it's no big deal at all that he tailors for some of the country's most prominent nationalists. Hamilton likes him.  </p><p>It’s nice for someone to look at him and actually see him, not to have their eyes glaze right on over him in the way New Yorkers are so good at. It’s unreasonable how alone Hamilton sometimes manages to feel in a city of eight million people, how when he expects it least, the loneliness comes and sweeps him up. On street corners, in subway stations, on the couch at night, sometimes he can barely breathe. It wrenches the air straight from his lungs.</p><p>“So,” Hercules finally says after an hour's passed, “what’s had you pacing up and down the street for hours?”</p><p>Hamilton stares into his coffee.</p><p>“I’m getting kicked out of the place I’m living tomorrow,” he confides in him. “And I don’t have anywhere to go, and I don’t have any money, and I don’t know anyone in this entire city.”</p><p>Hercules eyes him a moment, thoughtful.</p><p>Hamilton can pinpoint the exact moment when he makes up his mind.</p><p>“Well, you know, I live above the store, and I’ve got an extra room. I use it as storage now, but I could move some stuff around, rent it out to you if you’d like.”</p><p>Hamilton’s mouth opens—then closes.</p><p>He does the math, works it out, then realizes that there’s no way he could afford to live in this part of town, certainly no way he could hand over a deposit with the amount he’s got in the bank.</p><p>“I couldn’t afford that,” he replies, shaking his head.</p><p>“Come on—I’m not even renting it out right now. The room’s shoebox-small. It can't fit much more than a bed, but the rest of the place is pretty good-sized. I’ll rent it to you for five hundred bucks a month if you help out a few hours a week in the shop—sweeping, cleaning, that kind of thing. No deposit needed. You could move in tonight, if you want.”</p><p>Hamilton eyes Hercules, waiting for the punchline of some joke. There’s no way the offer can be legit; when things look good to be true, it’s usually a trick. But Hercules is looking at him with sincerity that doesn’t break, and Hamilton feels a flicker of hope rise in his chest despite the cynicism he's built up for so long.</p><p>“C’mon. You’re not serious.”</p><p>“Sure I am.”</p><p>“What’s the catch?”</p><p>“Well," Hercules says. <em>Here it is, </em>Hamilton thinks, his heart dropping. "You have to quit smoking. I can’t let tobacco near my fabrics. Clientele wouldn’t be happy if I gave them their apparel with a side of cigarette smoke.”</p><p>Hamilton blinks, taken aback.</p><p>It still feels too good to be true, like he’s somehow getting scammed.</p><p>But Hamilton doesn’t exactly have anywhere else to turn, has no better options lined up. It can’t be much worse than his current situation, either.</p><p>“Alright,” he finally agrees. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I just smoked the last of my pack, huh?”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton doesn’t say a goddamned word when Hercules yanks him roughly towards the road. He can’t even bring himself to bear to look at the man, lest he lose his goddamn mind and get himself shot. He can’t fucking believe—Jesus—<em> Hercules? </em></p><p>“Don’t say a word,” Hercules hisses into his ear as he throws him into the backseat of an armored Humvee. His hand stays on Hamilton’s arm a moment—squeezes. “C’mon, man. Trust me.”</p><p>Hamilton closes his eyes, tries to disconnect himself from the situation. He tries to ignore the Redcoats that slide into the beside him, then cold press of a gun into his neck—</p><p>“Jesus<em>, </em>he’s already cuffed up. Put the fucking gun down.”</p><p>The gun goes away. But the fact remains that Madison and Jefferson are captured, probably headed to their deaths, and it’s all his fault. If he’d just—he shouldn’t have—<em> fuck. </em>It was supposed to be him. It was supposed to be his life that he threw away—not theirs. It wasn't supposed to go like this. This was where they were supposed to part ways.</p><p>“I can’t believe they made it this long,” one of the Redcoats beside him says after a while. “I thought we shot everyone in Washington’s motorcade when they tried to leave the city.”</p><p>“They must not have been with them,” the other Redcoat says. “Jefferson and Madison escaped on their own, remember? Jefferson was at the front of the stage at the podium?”</p><p>“Yeah, but still—how the fuck did they get out? Wasn’t an hour before the King had the whole fuckin’ city razed. No way they could’ve gotten out on the roads. They were all blocked off..”</p><p>Hamilton tries to ignore them, block out the conversation.</p><p>“Yeah, but didn’t Carmichael say he saw some Cabinet guy back in Yorktown?”</p><p>“Yeah, well, Carmichael says a lot of shit. He said John fuckin’ Adams made it out—like Adams wasn't the first that one to get disemboweled. Must suck for Jefferson—weren’t they roommates in college or something? And his brother died too. Talk about a bad fucking day.”</p><p>“Who gives a fuck? Look, I’m just saying—if those two made it out, maybe some of the others did too.”</p><p>“So we’ll get them to England and hang them too. End of story.”</p><p>Hamilton drags in a shuddering breath. He feels eye pricking into him, watching.</p><p>“Hey, doesn’t he look kind of familiar?”</p><p>“You know, now that you mention it… Hey, Mulligan, you know this guy?”</p><p>A beat of silence.</p><p>“Nah, don’t think so.”</p><p>“Hey,” one of the soldiers says, jamming an elbow into Hamilton’s side. “Do we know you from somewhere?”</p><p>Hamilton stares straight ahead.</p><p>“Wait, wasn’t this the guy that punched—”</p><p>“Finish that sentence, and I’ll throw you out of this fucking car,” Hamilton interrupts, his head snapping to the side.</p><p>It’s an empty threat. It doesn’t make him feel better—just drives home the hopelessness of the situation.</p><p>What does he do? What <em> can </em> he do?</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t know where he is, and he’s about to be shipped off to England to be dissected. He doesn’t know where Jefferson or Madison are, but they’re fucked. He doesn’t know where the fuck the rest of his friends are, but apparently maybe the only goddamn one he knows is left moonlights as a fucking traitor. Everything is—Hamilton closes his eyes.</p><p>There’s a soldier on either side of him. Hamilton’s cuffed. He could try to disarm one of the men—but then what? He’d have the other to deal with, have Hercules in the front seat. Even if he gets out, then what? He doesn't have his pack. He doesn't even have his pistol. It's February. He's so far north he'd probably freeze to death if the Redcoats didn't recapture him first.</p><p>Hamilton watches as Boston approaches, stares as the skyscrapers near closer and closer.</p><p>The walls loom high as they approach the edge of the city.</p><p>He should never have agreed to come.</p><p>It’s the walls: he’s reminded of the walls that seemed so safe, so impenetrable the first time he and Laurens entered Charleston—that <em> were. </em>The walls protected them, kept them safe—and then became the walls that held them all in when the infected came, trapped them like fish in a barrel to be picked off, ripped apart.</p><p>The slabs of concrete stretch menacingly high as the car stops, as Hercules speaks to a guard outside the window, as they finally enter. There’s another fence on the inside, but this one is less threatening: ten feet high, easily scaled if not for the razor wire wrapped around the top.</p><p>Hamilton wonders if the walls keep people in as much as they keep infected out.</p><p>“How many people live here?” he asks no one in particular.</p><p>“Thirty thousand Tories?” one of the soldiers answers. “A thousand or so more if you count the Sons.”</p><p>“Whose sons?” Hamilton asks, irritation bleeding into his voice. "I've heard that word half a dozen times, and it means just as little to me as it did the first time."</p><p>The soldiers blink, raise their brows.</p><p>“You don’t know who the Sons of Anarchy are?”</p><p>“What, you think I'm asking for shits and giggles?" Hamilton flatly replies. "Are they like the Sons of Liberty or something?"</p><p>He receives blank stares in return. In the front seat, Hercules heaves a sigh.</p><p>“Yes, like the Sons of Liberty. They <em> are </em>the Sons of Liberty. Or were, at any rate. But since the outbreak they’re become—” An almost imperceptible pause. “—lawless anarchists. Want to drive the Redcoats out of the country entirely, run the land however they want. So we thought it was appropriate to call them a more fitting name.”</p><p>Hamilton processes that information, glances back to the soldiers at his sides.</p><p>“And the Sons are here in Boston?”</p><p>“They came in a couple weeks ago and took one of the western checkpoints. They’re trying to move across the city—but don’t worry. You and the prisoners will be out of here before dawn. They’ll never even know you’re here.”</p><p>Hercules shifts in the front seat. His eyes stay on the road ahead, never straying to the rear-view mirror. Hamilton wonders if he's guilty, if he's remorseful—or if he feels just as vindicated as Arnold.</p><p>Hamilton doesn't want to think about it. Doesn't want to think about how their friendship was built on lies. </p><p>He watches the city as they drive through.</p><p>He can feel its emptiness. Trash litters the streets—sometimes bodies do too. Smashed windows run abundant. Bullet holes litter the fronts of buildings. The half-melted snow shoved to the sides of the road is often stained with something too red not to have come from something living. He sees only a handful of people the entire way; most are Redcoat patrols walking along, bayoneted rifles in hand.</p><p>The city is dead, empty as Hamilton's chest.</p><p>A quarter-hour later, the car comes to a stop.</p><p>Hamilton gets out. A Redcoat hand falls heavily onto his shoulder, holding him fast. He looks around, feels the sting of freezing wind on his face, smells the salt rolling in the air. Cobblestones line the street beneath his feet, leading out to the harbor—to the ocean. The sky is low and grey, and waves lap up at the stony shore. Thousands of miles away is England.</p><p>Thousands of miles away is whatever's left of his future.</p><p>But there are other things to worry about first: for one, Jefferson and Madison. A dozen yards ahead, they're being viciously yanked out of a car. Madison's lighter, can't stand up to the man-handling like Jefferson, gets thrown to the ground—but immediately, he stands, brushing invisible debris off the front of his shirt.</p><p>Arnold emerges from the passenger seat with a cluster of Redcoats, rounds the car to stand before the two of them.</p><p>“What've you got to look so unpleasant about?” Arnold asks Madison, baiting him.</p><p>“I’m going to get sick,” Madison answers, his cold voice polished. “I always get sick after being around people—unfortunate for a politician, as you might imagine. Barring modern medicine, the apocalypse was likely the best thing that ever happened to my immune system." He looks around, his eyes landing on a dead body splayed out on the side of the road a handful of steps away. Vague disdain creeps onto his feature; he looks away. "At any rate, that car was a petri dish of fluids. I expect I'll come down with a fever within a few days.”</p><p>“Well, we’ll get you home quick. That way you won’t live long enough to get sick,” a nearby Redcoat retorts.</p><p>Madison smiles calmly, his eyes prickling.</p><p>“You’d be surprised.”</p><p>Hamilton starts to move towards them, stopped by Hercules’ hand falling onto his shoulder.</p><p>“Jefferson said you don’t know them,” Hercules reminds him, his voice suddenly in his ear. “Remember your cover.”</p><p>Hamilton hesitates, weighs pulling away from Hercules, rushing to the two of them anyways—but he doesn’t. He stays put. Hercules almost smiles, pulls a key, uncuffs him—like he's some kind of dog, like rewards will make him forgive the trespass, Hamilton bitterly thinks. He rubs his wrists, lets Hercules’ hand guide him towards the ship waiting by the docks, his mind racing. They pass Jefferson and Madison, leave them behind.</p><p>The metal ship looms high in the water—one of the Royal Navy’s frigates. Hamilton has never been one for navies, but he knows a well-made weapon when he sees one, knows that the colonies have never been allowed to build something as powerful. Just like they had no army, they had no Navy; the Redcoats were supposed to protect them. But here they are needing protection, and England barely spares them enough Redcoats to hold Boston—not even that, if the Sons continue to advance.</p><p>What a load of shit.</p><p>“Get your fucking hands off me,” Jefferson snarls from somewhere behind him.</p><p>Hamilton casts a look over his shoulder, sees Madison and Jefferson being dragged along a handful of yards back. He wets his lips, meets Madison’s eyes. The two of them can’t get on that ship. Hamilton can, but they can't.</p><p>Madison’s eyes bore into his, communicating something silent that Hamilton doesn’t have the intimacy to understand. Madison grasps that, glances to their captors until there’s an opening when no one's looking—</p><p>“<em>Don’t stop moving,” </em>he mouths.</p><p>Hamilton turns away before anyone can catch on. He walks faster, almost leaving Hercules behind him until the man speeds up.</p><p>“Hamilton?” Hercules warily asks, catching on that there's a plan being formed. Hamilton doesn't even look at him.</p><p>The ship nears. The gangplank comes closer. Thirty feet. Twenty. Ten.</p><p>Hamilton’s feet meet the wood of the bridge.</p><p>A voice cries out in pain behind him—no, not pain. Hamilton knows it a trick before he's even turned around.</p><p>He looks back just in time to see Madison feign a misstep, stumble forward—just enough of a distraction for Jefferson to wing forward, throw his chains around Arnold’s neck, draw his arms in close. Before Arnold can even begin to scramble at the chains constricting his neck, Madison’s there beside them both, nicking Arnold’s handgun, jamming it against the side of his neck. It’s an awkward angle handcuffed, has to be viciously painful, but Madison’s face gives away nothing.</p><p>Half the Redcoats stand idle, eyes wide; half reach for their guns once they’ve realized what’s happened. Hercules swears beside Hamilton, moves forward—Hamilton grabs the back of his coat.</p><p>“Don’t fucking try it,” Madison snarls at the soldiers, crushing the barrel of the gun into Arnold’s jaw just as Jefferson squeezes the chains so tight he looks liable to snap the man’s neck. Hamilton’s heart races.</p><p>A fucking hostage situation: fantastic.</p><p>Another goddamned square in his apocalypse bingo.</p><p>“Be sensible,” Arnold’s voice gasps. “You can’t get out of this.”</p><p>“Why the fuck would that make me want to be sensible?” Jefferson growls, yanking the chains around Arnold’s throat tighter. He looks around, makes eye contact with all the Redcoats around. His voice is slow, honeyed, drips like molasses when he speaks again. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. Arnold, you’re gonna call every damn one of these fuckers off. Tell them to put down their guns. Then the three of us are gonna walk away very, <em>very </em>slowly<em>. </em>And if no one tries anything stupid, <em>maybe </em>I won’t wring your goddamned neck.”</p><p>Arnold ignores him, looks for help elsewhere with pleading eyes.</p><p>“What happened to being civilized, Mister Madison?”</p><p>"The same thing that happened to the Cabinet."</p><p>“Oh, and take that stupid fucking accent and shove it up your ass,” Jefferson adds.</p><p>Arnold tries to get out a <em>go to hell, </em>but Jefferson cuts him off with a vicious tug.</p><p>“That didn’t sound like an <em> Alright, Jefferson, yessir, Jefferson </em>to me.”</p><p>Madison presses the gun closer to his neck, his eyes merciless.</p><p>“You may be right that we go to Hell today,” he says, “but if we do, at least you’ll come with us.”</p><p>Hamilton’s mind races. Hercules’ rifle is held in his hands, twitching ever so slightly, like he doesn’t know whether to shoot or not. Neither of them know what to do, it seems.</p><p>“Alright,” a wild-eyed Arnold concedes between panicked attempts to suck in air. He looks to his soldiers. “Fuck—stand down. <em> Stand down. </em> We’ll do as they say."</p><p>Madison and Jefferson are too focused on the Redcoats in front of them, too focused on watching for any sign of movement. Their backs are turned to what’s behind them. They don’t notice the duo of Redcoats rounding the block a hundred feet back, that freeze and stop short as they take in the sight in front of them. Madison and Jefferson are oblivious, blind to the Redcoats as they creep forward, begin to lift their guns, take aim at their backs.</p><p>
  <em>Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—</em>
</p><p>Hamilton lunges, yanks the rifle out of Hercules’ hands, aims and prays.</p><p>The gunshots scream through the air.</p><p>Jefferson's face floods with fear. Madison’s eyes widen at the sound.</p><p>(Don’t do it, Hamilton prays).</p><p>Madison shoots.</p><p>There’s a split-second of silence where no one seems quite sure what happened, where everyone tries to process. The Redcoats behind Jefferson and Madison crumples to the ground, a hand going up to staunch the bleeding in the side of his throat.</p><p>Benedict Arnold crumples in Jefferson’s grasp.</p><p>Half his face is still frozen in surprise; the other half is blown away, bone and brain coating the cobblestones. </p><p>A fraction of a second of stillness—then Madison and Jefferson swear, turn on their heels and haul ass. Jefferson's faster, has longer legs, pulls ahead—Hamilton lifts his rifle, shoots at the Redcoats that leap after them, that lift their rifles—a few Redcoats go down screaming. Ahead, Madison stumbles, a hand flying up to his shoulder, almost goes down face-first into the cobblestones—but Jefferson turns, opens fire, covers Madison as he rights himself—and then they’re all gone around the bend, outrunning the wind. Hamilton can’t even tell where they’re going, but the distinct New York feeling is back, crushing him in its embrace.</p><p>He flashes back to Laurens beside him in the front seat, to Burr’s car speeding away with half his friends inside, to losing Hercules on the bridge, to finding the Schuyler estate abandoned, to losing Laurens—</p><p>
  <em>You’re never going to see them again.</em>
</p><p>Most of the remaining Redcoats recover, more rush after them both—Hamilton readies to shoot again, but he’s slammed to the ground before he can. The rifle is ripped out of his hands. A bayonet digs into his back. Another slices into the back of his neck, digs into the base of his skull.</p><p>
  <em> “—sons of Anarchy!” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Where the fuck is—?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “—how many?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Get those fucking—“ </em>
</p><p>Hot blood soaks his collar. Hamilton shuts his eyes, waits for the white-hot flash of pain.</p><p>“Get the fuck off him!” Hercules’ voice booms.</p><p>Hamilton opens his eyes just in time to see Hercules drag Redcoats off of him by their lapels, his face screwed up in anger.</p><p>“What the fuck are you doing, Mulligan?” one protests, shoving him back. “He just fucking opened fire on our own damn men!”</p><p>Hercules steps back forward, jams a finger into the man’s chest.</p><p>“Arnold’s dead, which means I’m the highest ranked officer here right now.” He withdraws his finger, shoves the man back. “So unless you’re willing to get tried for insubordination, I pray that you've got the goddamn sense to shut the hell up—and <em> maybe </em> I’ll be kind enough to forget the lip you just gave me. Are we fucking clear?” He moves forward when there's a pause, his broad shoulders held back, eyes burning. “I said <em>are we clear?” </em></p><p>Tension crackles in the air, but the Redcoats brusquely let their rifles fall to their sides.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Yes <em> what?” </em></p><p>“Yes, Lieutenant Colonel.”</p><p>Hercules steps away, looking back to Hamilton. There’s something he’s trying to communicate to Hamilton that he’s not picking up on, some breakdown in their communication. Right now, Hamilton doesn’t know who Hercules is, and he’s increasingly unsure that he ever did at all.</p><p>It’s been a long year and a half.</p><p>“I want him in the brig,” Hercules tells the Redcoats. “Look at his neck. He’s immune—understand what that means? So if there’s so much as a <em> scratch </em> on him, I’m coming for all your asses.”</p><p>“Yes, Lieutenant Colonel.”</p><p>“I’m going after Jefferson and Madison.” He shifts back to Hamilton, face unreadable. “I’ll deal with you shortly.”</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t know whether it’s a promise or a threat.</p><p>            </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It’s been years since Hamilton was on a ship.</p><p>He took a ship to New York from Nevis, and when he landed, he vowed never to set foot on one again. It brings back bad memories, makes him think of violent seas and yellow skies and the way his mother’s hand gradually grew weaker in his, loosened, loosened.</p><p>(Let go).</p><p>Hamilton feels similarly nauseous as the Redcoats shove him up the gangplank, the tips of their bayonets pressed threateningly into his back. His neck is still bleeding, rivulets of hot blood skating down his back, a sticky parody of sweat. It’s so fucking cold outside that it’s the only thing he can feel.</p><p>It’s tolerable being above deck.</p><p>Below deck, the dim, dank air seems to choke him, thicken in his throat. His heart picks up. Sweat breaks out on his brow as claustrophobia closes it. It all only worsens when they shove him into a cell. He falls forward, wincing as his knees hit hard steel.</p><p>The cell door closes with a bang. The <em>click</em> of the latch feels resoundingly final.</p><p>Hamilton forces himself to stand despite the distantly sickening sway of the floor. The cell is small—hardly five steps from one end to the other. There’s nowhere to sit but the floor—not even a bed to rest on. A sob almost claws out of his throat, but he swallows it down, refuses to break down in front of the soldiers stationed outside his cell.</p><p>“It’ll take the better part of a week to get there,” a soldier mocks him. “Better get used to this.”</p><p>Hamilton takes a step towards the bars—then spits.</p><p>The satisfaction of the disgust and horror on the Redcoat’s face makes it more than worth it when he’s yanked violently against the bars, when his face connects with a crack. The impact makes him too dizzy to hear what the Redcoat tells him, but that’s no great loss. He’s released a moment later, stumbles dazedly back until his back hits the wall. Hamilton slumps down against it until he’s on the floor. Blood trickles lazily from a split on his forehead. He doesn’t bother to wipe it away. There’s no point.</p><p>There’s nothing for him in the cell.</p><p>There’s nothing for him in England either—only test tubes and cells and microscopes.</p><p>But Madison and Jefferson got away—at least for a few minutes longer. That has to count for something. That has to make it worth something, even if there’s nothing in England.</p><p>The road was always going to end in Boston.</p><p>Hamilton lets his mind drift.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton finds himself in Charleston. He always seems to. No matter how far he runs, no matter how hard he tries to ignore it, his mind always takes him back.         </p><p>He watches from above, an outsider to his own past.</p><p>He and Laurens smile at one another from over coffee mugs at a kitchen table. The apartment is theirs—designed and arranged to suggest New York. If they try harder enough, they can pretend.</p><p>They’re safe. They’re happy. They’re not alone.</p><p>There are neighbors—children, families, the elderly. They talk about the outdoor barbecues they’ll have once the weather warms up, trade recipes and whatever desserts they can bake without milk and butter and cream. Sometimes, they go over to other peoples’ apartments for dinner. Sometimes other people come to theirs. There's a frail sense of hope that rests over all their heads, lightens their shoulders.</p><p>But only because they all ignore the world outside the walls.</p><p>Charleston is a haven. What’s outside the walls may as well exist in another world.</p><p>And then one day it doesn’t.</p><p>The screams swell outside. Hamilton and Laurens stand in their apartment, facing one another, locked in impenetrable silence.</p><p>Laurens’ arm bleeds through his sleeve, betraying the teeth marks underneath.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Hamilton?”</p><p>Hercules’ voice breaks him from the memories. Hamilton’s on his feet in an instant, stalking towards the bars. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, what he’s going to say—but before he can figure it out, Hercules is looking away, looking between the guards.</p><p>“We’re going to talk—<em>alone. </em> Consider that a dismissal."</p><p>Hamilton watches the guards go, just as in the dark as he ever was.</p><p>“Jesus, Ham, what the fuck are you doing here?” Hercules whispers harshly, not sparing a second. “I thought you and Laurens didn’t make it out of New York. I mean—shit, man. I tried so damn hard to find you two, and I…” Hercules trails off, his eyes sliding past Hamilton to the empty cell. “I lost track of you on the bridge. I thought you both were <em> gone</em>. No one was there when I made it to the Schuyler’s, except…”</p><p>“Peggy,” Hamilton fills in, the name spawning heavy memories in his mind, grief briefly pulling him away from his anger.</p><p>“Yeah,” Hercules says, his eyes screwed shut. He draws in heavy breath. “Yeah, except Peggy.”</p><p>Grief fills the space between them, only deepening with Hercules’ next words.</p><p>“John’s not with you.”</p><p>Hamilton’s eyes slide shut.</p><p>“Charleston,” he says by way of an explanation.</p><p>Hercules’ face is heavy and lined when Hamilton finally manages to open his eyes.</p><p>It occurs suddenly to Hamilton that he’s never mourned—at least, not with anyone else. There was no funeral. No wake. No words spoken or hollow platitudes exchanged between the bereaved. There was only screaming—then silence.</p><p>(Hamilton never even stopped running, had to run, had to go, had to let Laurens' last sight be of him making it out alive).</p><p>“Laurens was a damned good guy. I mean—<em> fuck</em>. I remember when the outbreak happened, he was the one ready to kick our asses into gear. Jesus—I just… what the fuck kind of world are we in?”</p><p>“One when you’re a fucking Redcoat, apparently,” Hamilton answers, his voice growing vicious. “You sure as hell acted like a nationalist, but here you are flying the Crown’s fucking colors. You talked a big game, convinced me you were for the cause, but shit, things got rough, and you turned your fucking back, huh? You're a traitor. I can't believe—”</p><p>Hercules reaches through the bars, grabs ahold of Hamilton’s shoulder. He flinches when Hamilton shoves his hand away, angrily steps back.</p><p>“Come on, man—just listen to me,” Hercules pleads, his eyes nervously searching the hallway. “Fuck—you remember back in, what was it—2008? I told you all I had a client here in Boston and came up here for a week—remember?”</p><p>“The fuck’s that got to do with anything?”</p><p>“C’mon, Ham—do you remember or not?” Hamilton wants to fight back, doesn't want to listen, but he doesn't have much choice, has nowhere to go. He concedes with an angry shake of his head. “Yeah, did you ever think about how weird of a coincidence it was that a secessionist like me just <em> happened </em> to have an appointment in the same city the very same weekend as the Boston Tea Party?”</p><p>Hamilton pauses. He thinks a moment—remembers that Hercules came back with bruised knuckles. He remembers hearing the name <em>Sons</em> <em>of</em> <em>Liberty </em>dropped in news reports, Hercules’ weird, half-stifled laugh when Hamilton brought it up—<em>y</em><em>ou could’ve met one of them, and you might not’ve even known.</em></p><p>His face twists.</p><p>“What are you saying?” he asks, uncertain, his eyes narrowed.</p><p>“I’m saying that I’m thirty-four, and I’ve had a hell of a lot more time to fuck England’s shit up than you have,” Hercules whisper-hisses, leaning in. “After I thought all of you were dead, I went north. The head of the Sons is based here. He wasn't at the inauguration, so I figured he and some of the others might still be alive—but I couldn't find him. So I figured I could at least wreak some hell on my own, sewed myself an officer’s uniform, snuck into an occupied city, lied like hell—but turns out the commander is too fucking stubborn to get killed. Linked up with the Sons again after a couple months, and here we are.”</p><p>Hamilton digests a moment, reads Hercules' face, searching for some hint this is a trick, some sign that he's being scammed. He flashes back to a bagel shop in New York all those years ago, remembers how he was sure Hercules was tricking him—and then remembers that he wasn't. That he didn't. That Hercules was the first friend he made in New York. That for the nearly three years they lived together, Hercules never stopped thinking of him, never stopped helping him out. Hercules was—Hamilton shifts on his feet, swallows hard. He wants to believe Hercules. If doesn't, how can he trust anyone? He needs to believe Hercules.</p><p>Some part of him has to.</p><p>“You fucking bullshitted your way into a command?” Hamilton finally asks.</p><p>Hercules' face breaks out in a kind of relief no man could ever fake.</p><p>“No one’s got any damn idea what’s going on, man. A quarter of the Redcoats got wiped out before they even got called back—enough people were missing to me to spin a good story. And, shit, we barely get orders from England because shit’s so fucked up over there. It’s every man for himself, Ham." Hercules shakes his head, urgency soaking his words. "Boston’s a fucking nightmare. The Redcoats can’t feed half the city, we’re always out of ammo, and god forbid you break curfew or sneak an extra ration or badmouth a Redcoat to their face. The <em> lucky </em>ones get thrown out."</p><p>"And the ones that aren't lucky?"</p><p>Hercules doesn't answer his question; he doesn't need to. They both already know the answer.</p><p>"It’s gonna be a clusterfuck now with Arnold dead—he was one of the better Redcoats, and he was goddamn traitor, for fuck’s sake.” Hercules anxiously checks over his shoulder. “We’ve gotta get you out of here.”</p><p>Hamilton blinks, then backs away with a frantic shake of his head</p><p>“What? No!” He pulls down his collar, exposes his mottled-patchwork scar. Hercules gapes, stares, wonder welling in his eyes as he sees the proof for the first time. “<em>T</em><em>wo months. </em> I got this <em> two months </em>ago. I was sick for weeks, unconscious for most of it—but I woke up. I’m immune. It’s not a trick. I’ve got to…” Hamilton trails off, but he can’t break now. “I have to get to England. It’s where the cure research is, right?”</p><p>“It’s where they’ll hang you for helping James Madison and Thomas goddamn Jefferson,” Hercules tells him, horror breaking through his awe. “Jesus, Ham, I had a whole plan to get the three of you out of here—and now you’re in the goddamned brig, and the two of them are fuck knows where embedded as deep in Redcoat territory as they can get with every damn soldier in fifty miles radius looking for them.”</p><p>Hamilton wets his lips. He doesn't know if he wants to hear the answer, but he has to ask.</p><p>“They’re still alive?”</p><p>“We didn’t find them dead,” he gravely answers, the implication clear. “One of them clipped Madison, but the blood trail went cold. Look, I tipped off the Sons. They’ll escort the two of ‘em out of the city if they find ‘em, but my guess is that neither of them will be asking anyone for help. I can’t help them anymore from where I'm standing—I’ve gotta get you out. C’mon.”</p><p>Silence settles between them when Hercules realizes Hamilton isn’t moving.</p><p>“I can’t go,” he finally says. “If the vaccine research is in England, that’s where I’ve got to be.”</p><p>"You can't have heard anything about the king," Hercules realizes. "You don't know how bad it is."</p><p>"What are you talking about? Heard what?"</p><p>"Heard that he's fucking apeshit, man. For one, he's been holed up in Windsor Castle for, like, a year. And second—the man fuckin' parades around in eighteenth century coronation clothes. Like, wig and all. Oh, and if that's not enough, he's gone full tinfoil hat. He's convinced that the Americans manufactured the virus to make him look bad. He's totally lost it." Hercules' mouth screws up. "The second he knows you’re American—let alone a goddamn <em> revolutionary— </em>he’ll forget all about a damn cure. <em>If</em> he even believes you in the first place.”</p><p>“I can fake an accent,” Hamilton desperately tries. “Or pretend to be a Tory.”</p><p>“You came with Thomas fuckin’ Jefferson!”</p><p>“He said he didn’t know me!”</p><p>“Yeah, and then you took on a platoon of Redcoats to keep the two of them from getting killed!” Hercules briskly shakes his head. “And someone will recognize you from the Henry Laurens incident. The most-watched video of fuckin’ 2011, in case you forgot? And in it, you’re standing in the same room as every one of the country’s biggest separatists—Jefferson and Madison included. So it sure as hell <em> looks </em>like you know them.”</p><p>Hamilton stands, unconvinced. Sensing his reluctance, Hercules reaches through the bars, grabbing onto Hamilton’s shoulder. This time, Hamilton lets him.</p><p>“I promise, we can figure this out—there’s gotta be someone somewhere else looking for a cure. We’re gonna find them, alright? And when we do, we’ll fix this. But you going to England won’t fix anything—all it’ll do is get you killed.” Hercules’ voice almost breaks. “C’mon, man. Don’t make me ship maybe the last damn friend I’ve got across the ocean just to let him die.”</p><p>A bitter taste fills Hamilton’s mouth. He can’t hold Hercules’ gaze for more than a few seconds.</p><p>“Alright,” he finally says, closing his eyes. “I won’t go.”</p><p>Not here—not now, at least.</p><p>Hercules’ hand is warm on his shoulder, a grounding presence when he squeezes.</p><p>“Thank you, Ham,” Hercules says, quiet relief flooding his words. He straightens, withdraws. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m getting my guys to come down here and replace the old guards. They’re gonna let you loose—but it’ll have to look like you fought. Swap clothes with one of them, then take one right at the end of this hall, third door on the left. All your stuff’s in there. Get it, then—and I can’t stress this enough—bullshit your way out of here.”</p><p>“Wait,” Hamilton flatly objects. “That’s your plan?”</p><p>“Hamilton, I’ve seen you write four-thousand words papers in an hour. You can bullshit your way out of anything if you put your mind to it.” Hercules almost smiles, but it's a strained sight. “I had a different plan if Madison and Jefferson were here too, but trust me—this one’s better. Only half a dozen Redcoats know your face. You can make a clean break.”</p><p>Hamilton is on the brink of protesting, but he can tell time’s running short. Hercules’ eyes are scanning the hallways more frequently, more anxiously.</p><p>“I’m leaving an officer’s radio in the storeroom too. Make sure you take it. Channel 102.3 is what all the Redcoats use: listen in, and it’ll help you figure out if any are around.” Hercules procures a palm-sized pocket dictionary from his pocket and passes it through the bars. “Head to the easternmost gate—the Sons have that one under control. Once you’re out of the city, call me Channel—listen—Channel 32.5, alright? It’s an open channel: the dictionary’s the key to the code I’ll use to talk to you. Don’t lose it. There’s only one other copy, and it’s mine.”</p><p>“You’re not coming with me?” Hamilton weakly asks, even though some part of him has known the answer ever since he heard the Redcoats address Hercules as <em> Lieutenant Colonel. </em></p><p>Hercules’ face twists.</p><p>“I can’t,” he gets out. “I’ve been undercover almost since outbreak day. The Sons have maybe a handful of people this high up—and with Arnold dead, they need me behind enemy lines more than ever. Ham, if we play our cards right, we might actually be able to take the city, drive ‘em out of Boston. If we can get Boston...”</p><p>Hamilton’s fingers curl tightly around the bars, tries to keep the misery he feels from reaching his eyes. Hercules already looks beaten down enough. There’s an unspoken understanding between them: they’ve lost all their friends, only just now found each other—and now they have to lose each other all over again. It’s a damn miracle they ever even met again at all. If Hamilton leaves now, it'll be more than a miracle if they ever see each other again.</p><p>The knowledge sits heavily between them, but they both refuse to confess to it yet.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Hamilton,” Hercules finally says in lieu of a goodbye; goodbye feels too final these days.</p><p>It could mean anything.</p><p>
  <em>I’m sorry we got separated in New York. I’m sorry about Peggy, about the rest of our friends—about Laurens. I’m sorry you’ve been alone. I’m sorry you’ve been stuck with Jefferson and Madison, who you complained about at least once a day for the entire five years I knew you pre-apocalypse. I’m sorry everyone’s dead. I’m sorry that you’ve got to go, and I’ve got to stay here.</em>
</p><p>It probably means all those things and more.</p><p>“I know,” Hamilton tells him, swallowing his dry throat away. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry too.”</p><p>And what more is there to say than that?</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hercules’ guards arrive.</p><p>There’s three of them—two men and a woman. None of them talk to each other. They wait five minutes, ten, fifteen. And when it’s finally clear that no one else is coming that way, the woman turns around, unlocks the cell door while the other two keep watch.</p><p>“Alright,” she tells him. “Williams here’s about your size—take his uniform. He’s a corporeal, so none of the low-level grunts should give you much trouble. You know much about the military?”</p><p>“No."</p><p>“Then keep your mouth shut if anyone else talks to you.”</p><p>Shutting the hell up has never been Hamilton’s strong suit, but the apocalypse is as good a time as any to hone new skills. The cell door swings open—he steps out, ignoring the guilt gnawing at him, telling him to go back, to take his chances.</p><p>It must still be plain on his face because the man—Williams’—face softens.</p><p>“Trust me, kid—it’s for the best you get the fuck out of here. I saw what you did for Madison and Jefferson. No way in hell Georgie wouldn’t put you in front of the firing squad for that little stunt.”</p><p>“Yeah,” the woman agrees. “That was brave—and pretty fuckin’ stupid. It’s probably a good thing you’re not bad to look at, because I’m not sure there’s much going on behind that pretty face of yours.”</p><p>“Jones—”</p><p>“What? He’s gotta knock the shit out of us, doesn’t he? I may as well fire him up a little first.” She turns back to Hamilton with a sigh, rolling her shoulders. “Alright, then—you know what to do. Just… miss the mouth, won’t you? Williams here would miss my smile if I had to walk around minus a few teeth.”</p><p>Hamilton grimaces.</p><p>He makes it look real.</p><p>Down the hall, he finds their things: Jefferson and Madison’s guns, his pack, the Escalades’ keys. He grabs the rest of their things, the radio.</p><p>He thinks of Hercules and wishes things were different. His chest tightens, but he doesn’t have a choice; he leaves.</p><p>The Sons’ directions echo in his mind—<em>right, right, left, stairwell, left, right, left, ladder. </em></p><p>Hamilton sets his jaw tight, stares straight ahead every time he passes a Redcoat. The first few pass without incident, and then—one looks at him, looks away, looks back a second later, doing a double-take, their hand reaching for the baton in their belt. Hamilton drops his chin, tries to move past—</p><p>“Aren’t you—?”</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t let the soldier finish the sentence. He swings around, takes Madison’s revolver to the side of their face once, then twice when they don’t go down. The hallway is blessedly empty, but Hamilton doesn’t have the time to spare to drag their body out of sight, not when someone could round the corner any second, trap him there. Hamilton almost sprints down the hall, walks as fast as he can without drawing any more attention.</p><p>A minute later, alarms wail through the ship. Red flashes spray the halls in harsh light.</p><p>(Somewhere on the ship, Hercules surely has his face buried in his hands).</p><p>Hamilton runs.</p><p>Redcoats swarm into the hall. Chaos takes over. Hamilton grits his jaw—<em> bullshit through. </em>He shoves haphazardly past Redcoats, painting fury onto his face. One tries to stop him to ask a question—Hamilton sends him such a withering look that he shrinks away. Another grabs him—Hamilton’s eye twitches as he looks at the hand on his arm. The Redcoat lets go and retreats, frightened.</p><p>He blusters past, bursts onto the deck. The ship’s speaker system crackles to life.</p><p><em> “One of the prisoners has escaped. He—” </em> Hamilton rips the insignia off his stolen coat, shoves it in his pocket. “—<em>may be wearing a corporal’s insignia. The prisoner is said to be six feet tall with reddish-brown hair…” </em></p><p>The blatantly incorrect description is a nice touch.</p><p>Hamilton slides through the crowd, barks orders at privates as he passes, slips down the gangplank using a group of boarding Redcoats as cover. His feet touch solid land.</p><p>He glances over his shoulder at the ship as he slides between Redcoats.</p><p>On the deck, a Redcoat leans over the railing, watching his retreat.</p><p>Hamilton can’t make out the man’s face at the distance—but Hamilton knows who it is anyways.</p><p>“Make these fucks pay,” Hamilton tells him, and even though the words are lost long before they ever reach him, Hamilton hopes against hope Hercules hears them anyways.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Boston is ominous during the day. During the night, it’s something else entirely.</p><p>The sun was already setting by the time Hamilton slipped off the ship. By the time he’s far enough away from the harbor to feel like he can breathe again, it’s pitch-black. Occasionally, a flashlight will appear on the other end of a street, followed by English accents—but Hamilton dives out of sight every time, evading the patrols. He hears them as they go, flattens himself against walls as they pass.</p><p>
  <em> “Jefferson and Madison can’t have gone far.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “We’ve been looking for those arseholes for hours.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I can’t believe the immune one escaped too. What a cock-up. We should’ve known he was with them—the whole immunity story was a set-up, yeah? Just him trying to get into the King’s quarters?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Jesus, did you see the number he did on those guards? Poor bastards.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “To hell with the Crown—if we see ‘em, we can just say they shot at us.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Did you hear that Madison and Jefferson have been fucking this whole time?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Sodomizers holding office—how typically American.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Isn’t the immune one a sodomizer too? He was the one who punched Henry Laurens, wasn’t he?” </em>
</p><p>Hamilton closes his eyes and does the ten-count Madison is so fond of. He doesn’t feel any less angry, but at least the Redcoats have usually passed by the time he’s done.</p><p>In the dark, Hamilton doesn’t even know which direction he’s heading. He remembers where the sun set, but he’s walked so long he’s not sure if west is still behind him, or if it’s to his left or—fuck, he’s lost. He’s lost in the middle of a huge, terrifying city. He’s lost, hunted, alone, hopelessness clawing past his ribs—Hamilton sharpens his will into a spear-point, shoves down waves of despair that could crumple a lesser man, repeating <em> survive </em>like a mantra in his head until his other thoughts are drowned out.</p><p>He turns a corner, comes face-to-face with a Redcoat patrol—Jefferson’s shotgun mows them down before they can even lift their bayonets. He takes their rifles, slings them over his shoulder, presses on. A Redcoat takes him by surprise, slashes their bayonet into Hamilton’s thigh—Madison's favorite knife arcs through the air, slows when it cuts across. Blood sprays his face.</p><p>His leg burns, but he barely feels it.</p><p>
  <em> Survive. Survive. Survive. </em>
</p><p>Hamilton comes across dead Redcoats, wonders if Jefferson or Madison put them there—an armored truck swings violently around the bend in the block, sprays him in its harsh mounted spotlight. Automatic gunfire unleashes; Hamilton barely has time to dive through a half-broken storefront window before bullets rip through where he was just standing. Glass shards poke out of his hands, but Hamilton pushes back onto his feet anyways, runs past rows of children’s toys and shelves of stuffed animals. Bullets tear through the store behind him. At the other end of the storefront, soldiers enter shouting, fanning out to find him.</p><p>Hamilton bursts through a door in the back, comes out into a storeroom. Boxes provide him cover. He barely leaps behind a stack before two Redcoats enter the room. One goes left; the other goes right. Hamilton quells his breathing, tries his damndest to quell his heartbeat, lest it too give him away. He’s sure that they’ll hear it, that they’ll corner him—the Redcoat that went left appears in his vision.</p><p>Hamilton dives forward, clamps a hand over the Redcoat’s mouth, wraps an arm around their throat, and lifts the point of Madison’s buck knife to their neck.</p><p>“Shh,” he hisses, digging the point of the knife into the hollow of the soldier’s throat. “Make a sound louder than a fucking whimper, and I kill you. Clear? Good. Alright—how many are there?”</p><p>“Nine others,” the Redcoat whispers, terrified. “All armed.”</p><p>“You’re the first to shoot at me on sight—why’s that?”</p><p>“You started to run. No one runs unless they’ve got something to hide.”</p><p>Hamilton considers that a moment—wonders how many civilians they’ve turned that exact same logic on if they’ll shoot someone wearing their own damn colors.</p><p>“Alright,” Hamilton says, appeased, conscious of the soldier’s drifting hand, of how it's reaching for another gun like Hamilton is too much of a moron to notice. “Thanks for the help.”</p><p>His knife drips red when he pulls it out.</p><p>He learns why the Redcoats wear red.</p><p>(The blood doesn't even show, just blends right in).</p><p>Hamilton takes out the other man when the gurgling prompts investigation, sneaks slowly back into the toy store. He takes a Rubik’s cube, chucks it a few rows over—and when the Redcoats investigate, he dashes forward, dives behind the register.</p><p>He’s close to the window, close to escaping, but the military Humvee is still outside, its spotlight shining through the windows, its turrets pointed threateningly at them all. Even with his leg torn up, even a little battered and more than a little hungry, Hamilton can still outrun a Redcoat if his life depends on it. But he can’t outrun a fucking truck, and he sure as hell can’t outrun a hail of bullets.</p><p>What are his options? The truck’s certainly called for backup by now—Hamilton can’t out-wait them. Even if he picks off the rest of the soldiers, what then? He’s still trapped unless he can find some kind of back exit. And his chances of picking off eight armed, trained soldiers? Well, the best part about the infected is that they can’t think worth a damn. He could take down more some other time, but not when it's dark, not when he's hurt, not when he's trapped.</p><p>This is bad—his odds are bad, bad, <em> bad </em>. He’s in such deep fucking shit he’s about to drown in it.</p><p>
  <em> Goddamnit it. </em>
</p><p>Well, if he’s going down, he may as well do it in style.</p><p>(He imagines Jefferson’s laugh, approving, Madison's brows lifting).</p><p>Hamilton checks Madison’s revolver—two bullets. Jefferson’s shotgun—four shells. He’s still got the rifles from the Redcoats he took out earlier and his knife. He can make a stand. Even if reinforcements come, he can probably take out a couple dozen of them first. He closes his eyes a moment, thinks.</p><p>If he can't, then he at least hopes that Madison and Jefferson make it out alive.</p><p>Hamilton readies himself, shifts to the balls of his feet, moves to—</p><p>The world shatters in a haze of white.</p><p>Glass explodes, and Hamilton barely ducks in time to avoid being speared through. His ears ring, he’s disoriented—and he looks outside to find the Humvee on fire, the doors opening as Redcoats scramble frantically out, fall out onto the road.</p><p>“Get ‘em, boys!” a voice booms—deep, low, and distinctly American, distinctly Boston.</p><p>And before the Redcoats can even aim back, Hamilton catches sight of something flying through the air. He just barely sees it hit the ground, sees its shape, realizes—<em> fucking shit, they’ve got grenades— </em>and then drops the hell flat to the ground before the Humvee’s gas tank blows, takes out half the street and half the storefront too.</p><p>Redcoats stream forward to what’s left of the doors, shouting angrily. One races to vault over the counter, lands beside Hamilton; Hamilton silences him with his knife through their neck, presses his back tight to the counter, lifts his gun in case any others come close. Gunfire erupts just feet away, deafening volleys traded back and forth. In the chaos, Hamilton glances over the top of the counter, takes stock of the Redcoats in his sight, oblivious that in their movements, they've let Hamilton flank them.</p><p>Hamilton wonders what’ll happen if he stays out of it—then decides he likes the newcomers better than he likes the British. He’ll take his chances.</p><p>Hamilton pops up, aims. Madison’s Colt Python is still in his hands as he fires, once, twice. He shifts to Jefferson’s shotgun—at this distance, it’s more of an extremely painful distraction than anything lethal, but it takes down another few Redcoats. His shooting is lost in the confusion—no one even seems to notice him, realize they’re being shot at from the side.</p><p>The newcomers sense that the tide’s in their favor now. They storm the store, shouting, fearless, swinging wildly.</p><p>In seconds, it’s all over.</p><p>A man steps through the wreckage in the window, looming tall in the grenade smoke.</p><p>“Thomas?” he calls out. Hamilton ducks back below the counter. “Madison? Y’all in here?”</p><p>Broken glasses crunches delicately beneath booted feet.</p><p>Hamilton holds his breaths, weighing his options. The boots near him.</p><p>“Heard the gunfire, thought y’all might need some help. Friend of mine said we should be on the lookout for some escapees. That y’all?” An expectant pause; a sigh. “No? Well, if you’re shooting Redcoats, chances are we can still be friends.”</p><p>The footsteps stop just on the other side of the counter.</p><p>“If you’re a civvy, you’re safe too. Just come on out with your hands up, and we’ll all get along fine.”</p><p>Hamilton hears the soft <em> click </em>of guns reloading.</p><p>He has no choice but to take his chances.</p><p>“I’m not a Redcoat,” he warns them out, swallowing. “I’m just dressed like one.”</p><p>“Then you better come out <em> real </em>slow, huh?”</p><p>Hamilton hesitates—then climbs slowly onto his feet. The pain from his glass-sliced hands and slashed leg are finally starting to reach him, and he hauls himself onto his feet with a wince. He keeps his hands by his side—if he goes, he’s not doing it with his hands in the air.</p><p>Hamilton looks at the dark-skinned man on the other side. He studies him, takes in his obscene height, the peacock blue-green overcoat, the close-cropped hair, the beard somewhere just past a few days of not shaving. At the same time, the man examines him. Disbelief seems to hit them both at the same time.</p><p>“You’re the immune one, aren’t you? Show me.”</p><p>Hamilton isn’t sure what to say, what to do, so he just complies, pulls down his collar. The motion, the disbelief from the witnesses—it’s starting to feel familiar now. But the man’s eyes go back from his neck to his face, searching. His eyes narrow from wonder to uncertainty—then realization.</p><p>“Wait,” he says. “I know you. You were—" He hesitates, eyes sliding pointedly to the rest of the soldiers. "You're the one who socked Henry Laurens, aren't you?"</p><p>“And you’re Samuel Adams,” Hamilton replies, shock lacing his voice.</p><p>“You know, I always wondered what happened to you,” Adams remarks, his accent ending every other word with <em> ah </em>. “I never really liked Henry Laurens much. Thought he deserved it, honestly.”</p><p>Hamilton slides back over the counter, still trying to figure out how to respond.</p><p>“Shit,” he finally says, “I’m a fan of your work.”</p><p>“The beer?” Adams asks, raising his brows. “Or the beliefs?”</p><p>“Both,” Hamilton replies, still vaguely in awe. "What are you doing here? Are you with the Sons?"</p><p>Adams laughs, genuinely amused.</p><p>"I <em>am </em>the Sons," he responds, "Commander Samuel Adams, at your service."</p><p>(Hamilton remembers Adams from New York, remembers coming home late to find Hercules and Adams sitting over a table, poring over papers Hamilton never got the chance to take a look at. Among a sea of high-profile clients, Adams was one of Hercules' most frequent regulars, Hamilton remembers. He's sure that Adams remembers him too, but Adams is conscious of the others in the room, must be conscious that if he has Hercules behind front lines, chances are the Redcoats have someone behind his).</p><p>"I didn't know you were still alive," Hamilton says after a moment.</p><p>"Bostonians are notoriously hard to kill. New Yorkers too, as it would seem."</p><p>Hamilton goes to extend a hand, then remembers that he’s still skewered with a window and thinks better of it. Adams sizes him up a second time, taking note of all the various injuries he’s accumulated.</p><p>“We should get you into friendlier territory, don’t you think?” Adams rhetorically asks. He shifts his attention back to his men. “Get the uniforms and guns. I’ll escort Mister Hamilton here to our ride.”</p><p>Adams places a hand onto the small of Hamilton’s back, guides him outside. Flames still smolder out of the wreckage of the Redcoat Humvee. Hamilton looks away from what must be bodies, distantly surprised at how numb he’s grown to the sight, to the thought of blood on his hands. His blood or theirs, he figures. Better theirs.</p><p>“You all haven’t found Madison and Jefferson,” Hamilton comments.</p><p>“No,” Adams concedes, “but we’re looking. We’re still deep in Redcoat territory here—if they’ve made it much further than this, we’ll be able to pick them up for sure. And they had a head start on you, yeah?”</p><p>“They should’ve. Madison got clipped in the shoulder by a bullet, but he was still hauling ass.”</p><p>Adams leads him to a Humvee identical to the one they just blew up—save for the drippy red spray-painted <em> Sons of Anarchy </em> on the side, the<em> A </em>of anarchy painted in a tongue-in-cheek anarchists' circle. Hamilton almost smiles.</p><p>Adams opens the door, helps Hamilton inside when his leg refuses to cooperate. Hamilton sinks into the backseat, exhaustion starting to overcome him. The initial rush of adrenaline has faded. His mind’s trying to convince him that he’s safe now, that he can rest—but he knows better than to trust that, knows he has to keep his guard up. Adams climbs into the seat beside him, the image of calm as he reaches beneath the front seat and comes up with a first-aid kit.</p><p>“Let’s get this glass out of you,” Adams tells him, coming up with a pair of tweezers.</p><p>“I’m fine,” Hamilton protests.</p><p>“Oh, so you can quit bleeding in the backseat of my car on command?”</p><p>Hamilton relents, grits his teeth while Adams pulls bits and pieces out of hands, arms. Rubbing alcohol sizzles and burns in the cuts—Hamilton refuses to flinch—and then his hands are wrapped in white bandages, tied off. The other Sons return just as Adams finishes.</p><p>“Head to base,” Adams tells the woman that slides into the driver’s seat.</p><p>“What?” Hamilton asks before he’s even finished. “No—Jefferson and Madison are still out here.”</p><p>“I’ve got two dozen other patrols looking for them.”</p><p>“Yeah, and you think they’re going to go with them nicely?” Hamilton asks, shaking his head. “I don’t even know if they know the Sons of Anarchy exist, let alone that I got out. They won't trust anyone you send.”</p><p>“A concerning prospect, sure, but you’re still bleeding all over the damn place,” Adams argues, motioning at Hamilton’s leg.</p><p>“I barely feel it,” Hamilton lies, sounding admirably believable. “And I’ve gone much further on worse.”</p><p>Adams considers him a moment.</p><p>“How well do you actually know the two of them?”</p><p>“Enough to know I wish I didn’t know either of them,” he answers instinctively, voice dry.</p><p>“Running around a hostile city at night with a fucked-up leg’s a funny thing to do for two people you don’t like,” Adams scoffs, though it’s mostly amusement in his voice. “But having known Thomas for two-something decades, I can see where you’re coming from. He does have a certain kind of charm, doesn’t he?”</p><p>“If by charm you mean the ability to make me want to kneecap him,” Hamilton says before he can decide it’s a bad idea to badmouth someone who’s clearly close friends with the man.</p><p>Adams bears it with good humor, snorts.</p><p>“He must like you,” he muses. “He sure thought you were a fucking riot after you socked Henry Laurens. All he talked about for weeks—God knows the shit he put up with trying to make nice with that man.”</p><p>“Yeah, Henry Laurens called me a low-rent gold-digging bastard to my face,” Hamilton remembers, his voice glazing over with ice. “I think I can imagine what he says about people behind their back."</p><p>“Well, you’re not always going to like your donors when you play politics—lucky for Thomas, I’m a fucking gem,” Adams says, his lips twisting in a wry half-smile.</p><p>Hamilton rolls that knowledge over in his mind, tries to scrape together what he can remember about Samuel Adams—he knows the man brews a damned good beer, knows that he’s one of the Massachusetts Representatives, a major player in New England politics, that his pockets go just as deep as any Virginian’s. He’s a hardcore separatist, and—some questionable politics aside—not enough of an asshole to leave a potential stranger to the Redcoats’ mercy. In other words, fine by Hamilton.</p><p>Because where does he go from here?</p><p>The world’s ended, his options are limited, and his path to England is severed.</p><p>There’s still the question of Jefferson and Madison, of course.</p><p>The city feels less dangerous from inside an armored vehicle, but the streets still pass them ominously. Occasionally, they run into another Redcoat patrol: the soldiers scatter at the sight of the spray-painted Humvee, evoking cries and insults out of the Sons in the truck. The radio crackles every now and then, tuned into the British channel.</p><p>
  <em> “Sons of Anarchy patrol spotted by the Common…” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “The Sons are out—they just took out half of the 42nd regiment.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Need backup at the corner of Elm and Marville…” </em>
</p><p>Hamilton’s eyes scan the streets.</p><p>“So,” one of the Sons in the front seats says, conversational. “Radio chatter says you’re supposed to be immune?”</p><p>In lieu of an answer, Hamilton distractedly pulls down the collar of his coat. Adams looked equally amazed the second time around, shakes his head.</p><p>“You have any idea why?”</p><p>“That’s what I was hoping the British could tell me,” Hamilton answers, bitter.</p><p>“Fuck the British,” a woman in the front seat snarls. “Five percent of people left worldwide, and they’re representing more than their fair fucking share in their little fucking island across the ocean since they left everyone else to rot.”</p><p>Five percent—the number knocks the air out of his chest. He knew it was bad, knew it had to be low, but he had no idea it was that low.</p><p>“What was the outbreak like there?”</p><p>He doesn’t care all that much about the answer—hasn’t since Laurens died—but he’s been pulled back into some small part of the world now, might need to know.</p><p>“Bad,” Adams replies, “but not terrible. They lost London for a while but retook it a couple months ago ago. Funny: they never thought to bomb any of their own cities—just ours. Guess you can do that when you call back all but a few thousand of your troops. But it's still a worse place to be than here. The King’s on a bender. No Parliament, no checks, no courts—he does whatever the hell he wants, and what he wants is to string up anyone that breathes funny around him. Trust me: it’s for the best you didn’t stay on that ship.”</p><p>“What about other places?”</p><p>“Well, Canada’s fucked like us—and they didn't have the resistance we did. No one’s even heard from Australia in months—”</p><p>“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure Australia has spiders more threatening than the infected,” the driver cuts in, snorting a laugh. “I think they just killed them all, then fucked the hell off.”</p><p>“Insightful as always, Thomson,” Adams wryly remarks. Hamilton manages a half-smile, listens as Adams goes on. “All the Spanish and Portuguese colonies aren’t much better off. France only pulled some of their troops out of their colonies, but they’re so fucked-up at home that it may as well not matter." He arches his brows. "They abolished the monarchy, though.”</p><p>“Oh. Good for them.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, they’ve decapitated every leader of leaders that’ve come since, so it’s a mixed bag.”</p><p>Vicious irony twangs through Hamilton’s chest. <em> France abolished the monarchy— </em>of course the news would come with an asterisk. The other shoe always drops.</p><p>“It’s a shame about Lafayette,” Adams sighs a moment later, sorrow overtaking his face. “That was all he wanted, and he didn't even live to see it."</p><p>Hamilton's eyes close for a moment. He remembers Lafayette, brief as their meeting at Henry Laurens' gala was. He liked him, liked his effusiveness and ambition.</p><p>"Did you know him well?"</p><p>"Pretty well. <em>Jesus—</em>poor Thomas. They'd just started to get close."</p><p>Hamilton blinks a moment, understanding that he's missing something settling in. Something nags at him from the back of his mind—<em>Jefferson and Lafayette.</em></p><p>He pictures the two of them side-by-side, thinks back to the inauguration, to what Jefferson shouted to Arnold.</p><p>"Fuck. Lafayette was his brother, wasn't he?" Hamilton realizes, his eyes widening. </p><p>“Uh, did you miss that the two of them have the same fucking face?” Adams asks, though he doesn't sound surprised that Hamilton's only just caught on. "I get that the different last name throws people off, but, really, Lafayette looked like his clone."</p><p>"How the hell did France appoint an American the French-American ambassador?"</p><p>“He had dual-citizenship. Part of the reason they gave him the ambassadorship in the first place.” That explains almost nothing—and it shows because Adams continues. “The Jeffersons—as Thomas puts it, his words not, not mine—had Lafayette on a holiday to France, then forgot about him and fucked off." Which would explain why Lafayette could barely speak English worth a damn, why the Jeffersonian asshole quality skipped him over. "'I don’t even think Thomas knew he had a brother until he was—fuck, twelve?”</p><p>Madison’s <em> no one else made it out of Philadelphia</em> echoes in Hamilton's mind, coalescing with Jefferson's <em>my brother is dead, you fucking killed him—</em></p><p>“They really all died?” Hamilton asks, his voice quiet.</p><p>Adams knows what he’s talking about without having to ask.</p><p>“Yeah,” Adams agrees—then he shakes his head, retracing his steps. “Fuck—I don’t know. A few hours ago, I still thought Thomas was dead—and then I heard his name called  out on every fucking broadcast in the city. But I know Washington’s motorcade never made it out of the city—and I know Lafayette was in it.”</p><p>The knowledge hits him just as hard as it always does.</p><p>They fall into silence.</p><p>They wait.</p><p>Hamilton watches blood seep through the bandages on his hands.</p><p>It feels like a metaphor that’s a little too apt, a little too on-the-nose.</p><p>“—got two men matching Madison and Jefferson's descriptions pinned down in the Boston Public Library. Requesting backup—"</p><p>“Fucking gun it,” Adams orders. The tires screech. Hamilton abandons Madison’s emptied revolver and Jefferson’s unloaded shotgun, snags the clip the driver throws at him, reloads one of his stolen Redcoat rifles. “This is Sons of Anarchy Commander Samuel Adams. I want every fucking Son in the eastern side of the city at the Library for an extraction—"</p><p>“—this is Major-General Gage. I want every Redcoat in the city to storm the Boston Public Library and to bring me Jefferson and Madison’s—”</p><p>The truck skids to a stop. Hamilton’s out the door before it’s even stopped, rushing up the steps. Samuel Adams yells after him—but then he’s suddenly at Hamilton’s side, charging with him. They burst through the front doors, instantly flanking the soldiers ahead of them. Hamilton shoots left, Adams right—the other Sons bring up the rear, pick off the rest before the first few Redcoats even know what’s happening.</p><p>“Thomas?” Adams yells through gunfire deeper in the library.</p><p>A bullet whizzes past Hamilton’s face. He dives behind a flipped-over table, joined by Adams. One of the Sons with them isn’t quite as fast, goes down with a cry. Hamilton doesn’t notice, waits for a break in the gunfire, the sound of a clip reloading—Adams drags him back down before he can move.</p><p>“You follow my orders when you’re with me—clear?” Adams snarls, his head popping over the table for just long enough to scan the library. He reaches into his pockets, pulls a Molotov. “Cover fire!” he orders them all—and Hamilton complies, popping just above the edge of the table and blasting away.</p><p>The other Sons follow suit—they only have an idea of where they’re shooting at, but the return gunfire stops long enough for Adams to aim. The bottle arcs, crashes against a bookshelf—and flames roar, licking up and swallowing a hundred books in a second. A handful of Redcoats rush out of cover, go down with a volley of bullets.</p><p>Their group advances, rushes towards the gunfire further on.</p><p>“Thomas?” Adams yells again as they slide behind a bookshelf, readying for another skirmish. “Come on, give me a fuckin’ bone here!”</p><p>Bullets tear through the shelves. Hamilton hits the ground. A body hits the ground beside him—but this one is less lucky than him. Adams crouches nearby, sizes up the advancing troops. Hamilton squirms forward, swipes a hand in the shelf, clears a gap between the books—and he aims.</p><p>Four consecutive shots tear through Redcoat ankles and calves, send them careening to the floor. Another volley of shots dispatches the soldiers. They advance.</p><p>“Jefferson?” Hamilton shouts this time. “Madison?”</p><p>They’re close now, burst out of the rows and into a grand hall. A long path stretches forward, enclosed by two rows of tables. At the furthest end of the room, shoved-over bookcases splatter the floor, providing cover. A dozen dead Redcoats lie between them and the far end of the room, but two dozen more are advancing, firing, providing cover for the others. The room is a chaotic mass of screaming, yelling, gunfire. The Redcoats don’t know they’re there yet, but fuck—it’s only four of them now, four backyard revolutionaries plus—<em> God, please let it be them— </em>against twenty royal soldiers.</p><p>“Burn ‘em,” Adams orders, his voice dark.</p><p>Everyone reaches into their coats, withdraws bottles and matches. Someone hands Hamilton a Molotov, lights his rag. They aim, throw—the room bursts orange-white with flame. Fire roars up bookcases, swallows tables, spreads in puddles of alcohol-induced chaos.</p><p>Still a dozen Redcoats.</p><p>A cloud of dark curls pops up at the far end of the room, aims at the fleeing Redcoats, shoots—</p><p>Time stops.</p><p>Hamilton is close enough to see Jefferson’s face change as he realizes he’s been shot.</p><p>Jefferson sinks back below the table.</p><p>Blood hangs in the air, assaults Hamilton’s senses, red fills his vision, bayonets sweep through the air, catch and tear, bullets soar—Adams is beside him, wreaking havoc, Madison is shooting, his eyes black with rage, Jefferson’s absent, not there, <em> don’t be dead don’t be dead don’t be— </em></p><p>Redcoats flood the room behind them, reinforcements arriving, aim and fire—</p><p>Hamilton vaults over the last table. Adams is one second slower, leaps over and falls with a shout as a bullet clips him, tears a hole in the arm of his peacock colored coat.</p><p>It’s only the four of them now—<em>the four of them. </em></p><p>Jefferson is gasping, chest heaving, wide-eyed. Blood soaks the side of his face, stains his hair red and matts it to his skull. At the sight of Hamilton, Jefferson looks on the brink of having a heart attack.</p><p>“Hamilton?” His eyes widen more as they slide to the second figure. “<em>Sam </em>? What the fuck—”</p><p>Adams sweeps the bloody hair from the left side of his face, reveals the source of the bleeding. It’s—well, fuck. It’s what’s left of Jefferson’s ear: the top third’s shot off. But that’s it—there’s no exposed skull, no open-air brain. Madison’s shoulders sag in relief. Hamilton looks once between the two of them, notes Jefferson's bruised, bloody knuckles, Madison's bloodstained shoulder, his bleeding nose, the dozen other injuries they've accumulated.</p><p>“We’re in deep fucking shit, Thomas, we’re gonna have to save this for later,” Adams interrupts him, frantically scanning the room. Still, he manages to flash the man a smile—strained as it might be. “You’re fine, by the way—just as much of a fucking drama queen as always.”</p><p>Fire is spreading quickly around them, consuming the room at record-speed. Smoke is starting to spread through the room, starting to burn Hamilton’s eyes. What’s worse is that they’re effectively pinned by the fresh wave of Redcoats. They can charge forward, go down in a hail of bullets—or they can stay, let the fire close them in. Their backs are to the wall, the windows are—</p><p>“We can go through the window,” Hamilton tells them, his eyes widening.</p><p>Madison pops up, shoots at the advancing troops.</p><p>“Are you missing the part where they’re all twenty feet off the ground?” Jefferson snaps.</p><p>Hamilton and Adams return the Redcoats’ fire.</p><p>“That one’s got a bookcase under it still—we can climb up, smash through.”</p><p>“Oh my God,” Jefferson intones, his patent dry, smarmy quality coloring his voice. (Hamilton’s shoulders slacken—ear or not, Jefferson’s fine).  Jefferson pops up, fires at the soldiers. “I can’t believe I’m going to die in a library.”</p><p>“I thought that was your ideal way to go?” Adams retorts between shots.</p><p>“Yeah, but I didn’t think I would do it when I’m <em> thirty fucking years old!” </em></p><p>Hamilton inhales a breath full of smoke, breaks out into a coughing fit. Madison shoves a handkerchief into his hand, then immediately goes back to shooting.</p><p>“When are the rest of those Sons—”</p><p>—<em>supposed to show up, </em>Hamilton almost says.</p><p>They show up mid-sentence, cut him off. From behind the Redcoats, a new wave of Sons arrives, starting to exchange gunfire. Confusion takes over again. The smoke is thickening, wafting in heavy pillars towards the high ceilings, obscuring the room.</p><p>“Can you run?” Adams asks Jefferson.</p><p>“I sure fuckin’ hope so.”</p><p>“Good,” Adams says—and then he shoves Jefferson out of cover. “Go!”</p><p>The three of them burst upwards, shoot viciously at the few Redcoats not distracted enough to see Jefferson making a break for the shelf. Hamilton’s hands are rock-steady. His aim holds.</p><p>Jefferson is at the top of the shelf in a flash, sending an elbow into the glass, pulling himself through—and then he’s gone.</p><p>“Hamilton, you next,” Adams orders, pushing him into the open before he can protest.</p><p>Hamilton dashes, shoots as he runs, scrambles shelf onto shelf—his hurt leg twinges, he slips—then pulls himself back up, throws himself onto the top of the shelf, through the glass. He lands hard, almost crashes forward—but Jefferson grabs hold of his shoulders, stands firm and steady when Hamilton slams hard into his chest.</p><p>“Where’s Madison?” Jefferson demands—but no sooner than the words leave his mouth than is Madison coming through, landing less than gracefully beside them, wheezing viciously from the smoke.</p><p>Adams follows a second later, and they run, burst onto a street. A Humvee swerves around the bend, and Hamilton readies himself to sprint back, out of its line of fire—but he catches sight of red paint on its side. Adams frantically waves them down. Tires screech to a stop in front of them. A door flies open. They dive in, Hamilton bringing up the rear.</p><p>As the car screeches away, gunfire cracks behind them.</p><p>The Boston Public Library is an orange glow in the rear-view mirror as it fades.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Save for heavy breathing and pained gasps, the car is silent.</p><p>Adams reaches forward for a moment, activates the radio.</p><p>“Pull back from the Boston Public Library—extraction’s successful.” He clasps the driver’s shoulder. “Good timing as always, Edes.” Sinks back into his seat with a groan.</p><p>Silence reigns.</p><p>Jefferson giggles. The sound is splintered.</p><p>Silence resumes.</p><p>Jefferson laughs outright. This time the sound is fully hysterical, breathless and bubbling, a full-body heaving that calls hyperventilation to mind. Hamilton’s on the other end of the backseat, so he’s blessedly spared the moral obligation to figure out just the fuck he’s supposed to do. He can barely even think—his lungs hurt, his chest hurts, his head hurts, his hands hurt, his legs hurt. His stomach is twisting and balling up and wrenching in his gut, and he suddenly has no direction, no idea what to do.</p><p>“Thomas,” Adams says because he’s closest, “What’s wrong?”</p><p>“What’s wrong?” Jefferson manages between peals of laughter. “What’s <em>wrong? </em>Everything is <em>fucked </em>is what’s wrong! Everyone knows we’re alive, this whole shitty city wants us dead, I’m missing a goddamn <em>ear—”</em></p><p>“Part of an ear,” Hamilton corrects him out of habit.</p><p>Madison almost fucking strangles him.</p><p>“Come on, Thomas,” Adams gently coaxes him, ignoring them both. “Take a breath.”</p><p>Jefferson closes his eyes, gasps in like a dying man once, twice—then his eyes reopen, a little less clouded by insanity. He blinks, inhales sharply, lifts a hand to the side of his face.</p><p>“Jemmy, have you got a handkerchief?” he asks, his voice taking on the cadence of easily fractured calm.</p><p>Madison fumbles for his pocket, forgetting he’s already given it to Hamilton. Hamilton only even remembers it’s still clutched in his hand until Madison comes up empty. He clears his throat, passes it over. Jefferson takes it daintily, presses it against his ear. It’s blood-soaked in seconds.</p><p>“We’re gonna need to clean that once we’re back in our own territory.”</p><p>“Yeah, I’m guessing you’re not gonna be able to sew it back together, huh?” Jefferson asks.</p><p>“Not unless you know where the rest of it is.”</p><p>Jefferson barks out a laugh—but this one isn’t so viciously unhinged, is instead colored by a tinge of bitterness. Hamilton sinks a little further into his seat.</p><p>“Right, then.” Jefferson’s eyes shut again. “Well, I’m in a lot of fuckin’ pain at the moment, so I think I’m gonna pass out now if that’s alright with y’all.”</p><p>He doesn’t wait for an answer, just slumps over onto Adams’ shoulder. Another time, Hamilton would be impressed with the self-awareness, but there are other things to think about. He can’t manage to do it, though. His head is clouded, foggy, anxiety weighing on him like an anvil. He shifts.</p><p>“Hamilton,” Madison heaves out, “dare I ask why you’re not on your way out of this godforsaken city?”</p><p>“Jesus, let the kid rest,” Adams criticizes him, his voice suddenly sharp. “He’s been through hell.”</p><p>“And you think we haven’t?” Madison shoots back, an unusual edge of anger flaring in his voice. “The only damn reason we even came to Boston was to get him on a damn ship out of here!”</p><p>“What, so the Crown can get their human experimentation jollies? If you want sign yourself up, then go fuck on over to the docks—but he’s too valuable to piss away when the King will have him killed before he’s made it a step into the castle.”</p><p>Hostility swells between them and inside Hamilton—<em>fucking typical, just trying to get rid of you— </em>but as they start to bicker, voices growing louder, he just wants them to shut the fuck up. They’re pissing him off, he’s going to start screaming, he just wants some peace and quiet.</p><p>Hamilton sucks in a breath, makes a pitiful cry, feigns a sudden wave of pain. It isn’t actually feigned at all; he just lets it wash over him openly. But it does the trick—Madison’s eyes avert to him, flooded with a concern that he typically only reserves for Jefferson. A gentle hand comes to rest on his shoulder, warm and more reassuring than it has any right to be.</p><p>“Hamilton?”</p><p>“I’m—” Hamilton’s eyes screw shut. Dizzily, he slumps against Madison, trying to figure out the best way to open his eyes without letting on that he's in rough shape. His leg sears. “… fine.”</p><p>He doesn’t want to admit he’s not, so he decides to drift away before Madison forces him to admit otherwise.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Between bouts of consciousness, Hamilton decides that passing out is a valid way of avoiding conflict that he should apply to future situations. He’s distantly aware of Madison and Adams still arguing, snarling at one another—but he’s pleasantly warm, drifting for most of it. <em> F</em><em>uck you both, </em>he thinks when their voices break through his haze—and then falls back into unconsciousness.</p><p>“Wake up,” a voice tells him after some time. “C’mon—you’re too stubborn to be really out of it.”</p><p>A hand pats his cheek, only a little force shy of a slap. Hamilton grumbles a swear but opens his eyes to find Adams looking down at him. Adams’ eyes brighten.</p><p>“We’re in the Sons’ main encampment,” the man explains, looping an arm around Hamilton’s waist. “Come on, we’re getting you to the med kit. Can get that leg of yours sewed up.”</p><p>“Please tell me you have painkillers.”</p><p>“What, you haven’t ever gone in raw with a needle and thread?”</p><p>“I’ve done it plenty, and that’s how I know I want painkillers,” Hamilton groans, forcing himself out of the truck and onto the ground. He stays upright, but Adams steadies him anyways. “Where's…?”</p><p>“They were both pretty badly out of it. Had someone take them to the medical tent already.”</p><p>Hamilton ignores the indistinct wisp of fear that coils his stomach, gets up to hobble alongside Adams</p><p>The encampment looks like one of the old just-post-apocalypse medical triage camps—it is, Hamilton realizes as they pass rows of stained white tents. They’re in some kind of parking lot common area, enclosed in by modern-art-esque buildings. It’s still mostly dark out, but a sliver of pink is just visible to the east, beginning to light up the area in something other than harsh spotlights; elsewhere in the city, dark smoke rises. Dozens of people mill around, sit playing cards or cleaning guns over tables. Eyes flicker to him; conversations stop. Murmurs fill the air: <em> immune </em> and <em> John Laurens </em> and <em> holy shit. </em></p><p>Hamilton glances up the glass-windowed façade of a building to avoid their eyes, reads the black block letters spelling <em> School of the Arts </em>splashed atop the building’s highest level.</p><p>“Wait,” he says, his eyes narrowed. “Are we at Harvard?”</p><p>“My one and only alma mater,” Adams sighs, fondness reaching his voice. “Congratulations—you can officially say you went to Harvard.”</p><p>“I almost went to Harvard for real.”</p><p>“Ah, so you’re an asshole too?” Adams laughs—and despite himself, Hamilton does too. After so long, it feels unfamiliar, leaving his chest feeling strangely tight. "Don't worry. You're in good company."</p><p>Adams leads him into a high-roofed white tent. The room’s filled with cots, but only a dozen or so are occupied. A handful of men and women in scrubs tend to the wounded, dressing injuries and stitching up gashes and administering shots and IVs. A generator rumbles somewhere nearby; it’s surprisingly high-tech given the state of the world, and Hamilton’s impressed enough to let Adams set him down onto the closest cot. A nurse materializes beside Adams in an instant.</p><p>“He’s tough. Needs his leg sewn up and his bandages changed—maybe a few other things. Don’t know if he’s still holding out on me or not.” Adams glances down to Hamilton. “You want morphine?”</p><p>Yes<em>— </em>but he doesn’t need it.</p><p>“Have you got any beer?” he asks instead, managing a weak grin.</p><p>“I’ll be back in a second,” Adams promises with a laugh.</p><p>The nurse is just finished changing his bandages when Adams returns with a pack of beer: naturally, <em>Sam Adams </em>is splashed across the label. Hamilton takes it with a snort, chugs through the first two, then motions for the nurse to start.</p><p>“Does he need a transfusion?” Adams asks. “I can go drag one of our O- guys out of hiding.”</p><p>“I’m fine,” Hamilton insists; earning himself a <em> like hell you are </em>look.</p><p>“I wouldn’t,” the nurse says after a moment. “I’m nervous about giving him anything. If he’s really immune, who knows what the hell his biology’s like? He could have an entirely unique blood profile. We might kill him.”</p><p>Hamilton lifts a bottle of beer in an ironic toast, then drinks deeply. Adams frowns, but pulls a chair, settles into the seat by Hamilton's cot.</p><p>“So,” Hamilton gets out, tilting towards Adams as a distraction. “The fuck’s your deal with Madison?”</p><p>The needle nips into his skin. He screws his eyes shut with a groan.</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“Well, you weren’t treating him like you wanna invite him to your fuckin’ wedding.”</p><p>Adams raises his brows, understanding settling in.</p><p>“What, Thomas never told you?”</p><p>“Your mistake is assuming that Jefferson—<em>Christ, </em> that hurts—that Jefferson and I are friends. Or that we—<em>shit</em><em>—</em>that we talk, for that matter.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, James fuckin’ Madison dumped him over a twenty-second phone call in college, then went off the grid on him for four years." Hamilton tries to do the math—can't, really, not while he's getting sewed up—but it has to have been something like ten years since it happened. Adams sound so damn angry it could've happened yesterday. "Thomas was broken up over it for months. Let me tell you, he’s not a pretty crier. Had to throw out a few shirts because of how much fuckin’ snot there was on ‘em."</p><p>Another time, that last bit of knowledge would probably make Hamilton a little giddy. As it is, he just feels vaguely troubled—even bad—but he attributes that to the huge fucking needle and thread stabbed into his leg every few seconds. But the thought of Madison dumping Jefferson so unceremoniously doesn’t sound right. He may have another piece of the puzzle, but he’s still about four hundred pieces shy of a picture.</p><p>Another stitch throws the thought out of his mind.</p><p>“Well, they’re together now,” Hamilton remarks between gritted teeth.</p><p>“Yeah,” Adams says, sounding none too pleased at the knowledge. “That happened sometime after they won their first election. I have no idea what kind of fuckin’ apology Madison made to him, but it must’ve been damned good.” He scoffs. “If you ask me, Thomas should’ve stayed with Angelica Schuyler. She never would’ve pulled that kind of shit.”</p><p>“He dumped <em> Angelica Schuyler? </em>”</p><p>“I sure fuckin’ hope not.”</p><p>Inadvertently, Hamilton’s thoughts drift to Angelica. Where is she? Where are <em> all </em>of them?</p><p>He knows where Peggy is, knows where Laurens was, knows where Hercules was a few hours ago—but what about the rest of them? Angelica? Eliza? Burr? The dozens of other people he knew, worked with, had classes with? There’s no answer, no way to find out. The uncertainty of it weighs down on him. His thoughts start to pull him under, drown him—Adams’ hand on his shoulder drags him up.</p><p>“You got a look in your eyes there,” Adams explains in a tired voice that reveals he knows all too well what Hamilton was thinking about. His eyes skirt down to where the nurse is finishing up the last stitch on Hamilton’s leg, cutting and knotting the thread. “Anything I can do?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Hamilton says after a moment. He hands Adams a bottle. Swallows hard. “Open this for me?”</p><p>And Adams does.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton dozes off after the nurse finishes with the rest of him. It’s a miracle given how little he sleeps normally: the beer does most of the heavy lifting, admittedly. And it’s not warm inside the tent, but it’s not ice-cold either. Someone’s pulled a little space heater up beside Hamilton’s cot, buried him in enough blankets to smother a small child.</p><p>His sleep is listless.</p><p>He dreams—thin, wispy, imperceptible things.</p><p>
  <em> He’s in New York, Central Park, a picnic—Henry Laurens' gala, Jefferson’s breathless laugh, Madison's handkerchief—Nevis, yellow skies, a hand that lets go of his—a computer screen, words flying from his fingers. </em>
</p><p>Hamilton blinks awake, brought back by pain. He’s alone. Light streams through the canvas roof, signaling that he’s slept at least a few hours. Gradually, Hamilton works his way onto his feet. There’s a fresh change of clothes waiting at the foot of the bed—a Harvard T-shirt, a Harvard sweatshirt, and Harvard sweatpants. So his outfit’s been sourced from the campus bookstore. Fucking fantastic.</p><p>But it’s better than his bloodstained apparel, so he changes, tucks the Redcoat uniform away to keep.</p><p>It’s early morning outside, and the camp is bustling. The Sons are a diverse bunch: men, women, old—and fuck, Hamilton hasn’t even seen a kid that young in months. He feels distinctly out of place, distinctly aware of his own otherness.</p><p>Slowly, he wanders forward, gradually letting himself be drawn towards what appears to be a random crowd. He edges around the crowd’s fringes, tries to figure out what they’re looking for.</p><p>Someone grabs his arm.</p><p>“Wait—aren’t you the immune one?”</p><p>Hamilton can’t even respond, can’t pull away before he’s surrounded, jostled, pushed to the middle of the crowd. He comes out into the eye of the storm, gets shoved almost directly into Jefferson’s chest. Barely, he manages to regain his footing, a vicious swell of irritation rising in his throat.</p><p>“Hamilton!” Jefferson’s delightedly exclaims, drunkenly elongating the o.</p><p>Jefferson flashes a too-white smile, the one Hamilton recognizes from speeches and rallies and newscasts. Despite being boxed in by the crowd—a thing that makes Hamilton’s heart race, activates his <em> fight-or-flight </em>impulse—Jefferson looks comfortable, for lack of a better word. In his element. One hand makes it way to the small of Hamilton’s back, an unfamiliarly warm feeling.</p><p>“It’s good to see you,” he tells him, still smiling brightly, still slipping a little on his syllables.</p><p>Hamilton looks him over once, notes the bandages peeking out from beneath his hair, notes the pleasant, glazed look in his eyes, and determines that Jefferson’s high out of his fucking mind.</p><p>“How are you feeling?” Hamilton asks, sliding closer to him to get away from the crushing crowd.</p><p>“Fantastic!" Jefferson replies. “Like a million fuckin’ bucks.”</p><p>“Yes,” Madison dryly agrees, “that would be the morphine.”</p><p>Hamilton didn’t even notice him—and Madison was right there, just behind Jefferson the entire time. The other man’s eyes slide vaguely disdainful to the walls of people surrounding them every few seconds, then back to Jefferson. He smiles politely, nods in acknowledgement as people talk to him and shake his hands, but it’s clear he’s not basking in the warmth with Jefferson’s snakelike ease.</p><p>“You let them stick you with morphine? I let them stitch up my leg without shit,” Hamilton prods Jefferson—he barely reacts: the pleasant smile never leaves his face.</p><p>“You still have both your ears.”</p><p>“You have most of yours,” Madison tries to reassure him. "It's not noticeable."</p><p>But before they can talk any further, the crowd descends on them. Even drugged half out of his mind, Jefferson spins, twirls, charms with an unnatural grace. He smiles, laughs, touches with the ease of a well-seasoned politician, earns himself starry-eyed grins and blushing smiles. Madison is considerably cooler in his charms, lets Jefferson receive the brunt of the attention—but he makes polite conversation, graciously takes thanks, directs people to Jefferson when he’s tired of talking. Hamilton can’t even look to either of them for help—he’s too busy being bombarded all on his own.</p><p>“You’re immune? Let me see where you were bit.”</p><p>“You were in New York? How’d you get out?”</p><p>“How long have you known Madison and Jefferson?”</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t want to talk to any of them, feels like a rat in a cage, just wants to get out of the damn crowd. He hates crowds, feels trapped, wants to get in the open. He replies in clipped sentences, occasionally tries to make a break for it—only to be pulled back in.</p><p>A man stops him on one of his attempts, asks,</p><p>“You’re John Laurens’ boyfriend, right? What happened to him?”</p><p>Hamilton flinches backwards, but eyes are on him, expectant.</p><p>“He’s dead,” Hamilton gets out, then tries to make another break for it.</p><p>Someone else stops him, asks,</p><p>“How’d he die? Were you there? Did—?”</p><p>Hamilton’s vision burns red. He’s distantly aware of the fists forming at his side, of the blinding anger swallowing him whole. He’s going to fucking lose it. He’s going to beat his way out of this goddamned crowd, knock the shit out of anyone—</p><p>"What kind of fucking question is that?" Hamilton cuts in, his voice rising. "Who the fuck do you—"</p><p>“I’m so sorry,” Madison apologizes, materializing out of nowhere to cut Jefferson off. He places a hand on Hamilton’s shoulder and squeezes—not to comfort him, Hamilton realizes, but to hold him back. It tracks perfectly: Madison’s always been designated damage control. “But I’m afraid the three of us have to get going. We have to speak to Samuel Adams,” he explains, perfectly civil. He turns, grabs ahold of Jefferson’s shoulder and physically pulls him away mid-sentence. “Thank you all for your kindness. Perhaps we’ll have the opportunity to speak more later.”</p><p>And then he’s shoving the three of them through the crowd. Jefferson squawks in indignation, but Madison silences him with a look. As they walk through the camp, Jefferson makes conversation, oblivious to the exchange he's missed.</p><p>“Jesus, I’ve missed that,” he sighs. “Fuck, I forgot how much I love networking.”</p><p>“Pretty fancy euphemism for schmoozing,” Hamilton objects, his voice sharper than he means it to be. Jefferson doesn't notice, but Hamilton still tacks on a gentler, “Or being fawned over, in your case.”</p><p>Jefferson sends him another white-toothed, vaguely loopy grin.</p><p>“I admit it: I like being the center of attention.”</p><p>“Yeah, no shit.”</p><p>"Well, what'd <em>you </em>think about getting swarmed?"</p><p>"Didn't fucking like it."</p><p>Hamilton’s blood is still boiling, his fists still knotted at his side—but Madison’s grip on his shoulder is firm, clearly meant to keep him from rounding back and giving any of the crowd a piece of his mind.</p><p>(Hamilton hates how well Madison can read people, hates how fucking efficient he is, hates how Madison was completely ready to dump him at England’s doorstep the first moment possible—)</p><p>“Let me go,” Hamilton snaps, but Madison's hand holds fast.</p><p>“Are you going to conduct yourself better than you did at Henry Laurens’ gala?”</p><p>“Fuck. You.”</p><p>“Jesus, Jemmy, that was two fuckin’ years ago,” Jefferson scoffs. “We both <em> hated </em>Henry. Did’ya forgot how many dinner parties he spent bitching about <em>oh, fuckin’ sodomizers, always bitching, blah blah blah?</em> It was dinner ‘n dessert to watch Hamilton lay his ass out! I don’t know why the hell you’re still so fuckin’ sore over it.”</p><p>“Why I’m <em>so</em> <em>fucking</em> <em>sore?”</em> Madison hisses. “Because it created a PR nightmare two months before the election—and at a goddamned donor party! I spent <em>weeks</em> with Washington doing damage control. It was wildly irresponsible, is what it was. And if you lose your damn self-control these days, someone’s just as liable to punch back—or God forbid, escalate<em>.”</em></p><p>Hamilton scowls and jerks away. This time, Madison’s hand comes loose. He hangs a sharp left, starts walking.</p><p>“I heard you were up,” Adams’ voice booms from a few yards away, stopping him short.</p><p>He’s not talking to Hamilton this time, but to Jefferson.</p><p>“Sam!” Jefferson exclaims, letting Adams drag him into a tight hug. Jefferson is suddenly the fucking paragon of warmth, returning the embrace with a genuinely delighted laugh.</p><p>“Jesus—none of us thought yah made it out of Philadelphia!” Adams finally lets him go, seems to notice Madison is there. His expression cools to something a half-step away from hostile, and he holds out a stiff hand. “Madison. Good to see you up and around too.”</p><p>Jefferson looks between the two, senses the bad blood, then gracefully slides between the two of them and turns to Hamilton, smiling widely.</p><p>“This is Samuel fuckin’ Adams,” Jefferson explains, like Hamilton’s somehow missed that even though it was the two of them that dragged them out of the library. “We went to the same summer camp every year until we were—”</p><p>“Too fucking old for summer camp,” Adams finishes, snorting a laugh. He claps a warm hand against Jefferson’s back, smiling again. “Jesus, Thomas, you have no idea how good it is to see you still kicking.”</p><p>“You too—good fuckin’ thing Boston’s a political shithole, huh?”</p><p>“Hey, my so-called political shithole kept me too busy to go down and get my ass wasted in Philadelphia. Besides, I don’t see many other cities putting up much of a fight against the Redcoats.”</p><p>“Yeah, because y’all must have so much pent-up aggression from not being able to kill each other on the roads every damn day—”</p><p>Hamilton turns away as the two of them start to catch up. He desperately wants to be alone, to figure out his next step. Thirty steps away, he realizes that Madison’s fallen into line beside him. He’s sneaky like that, light-footed and slippery. Hamilton’s always admired that a little—right now, though, he doesn’t feel like admiring it much at all.</p><p>“I don’t want to talk to you,” Hamilton tells him, anger swelling in his chest.</p><p>“Fine—then I’ll talk to you.” It’s semantics, but Madison doesn’t give him time to protest. “I think you should stay in Boston.”</p><p>Hamilton skids to a stop, his jaw tightening. He goes back on what he just said in an instant.</p><p>“Fuck you, Madison,” he says, coming to a stop. The other man doesn’t even blink, just looks at him with that ever-present pity, and it makes Hamilton  angrier that he can't even wring a real reaction out of him. Hamilton jams a finger into his chest. “You promised me—<em>oh, if you look after us, we’ll look after you— </em>what a load of shit. I should’ve expected as much from a fucking politician, but I—fuck, I guess I actually believed you, didn’t I? What a goddamn joke.”</p><p>“I didn’t lie to—”</p><p>“Jesus, Madison, grow the fuck up. Just tell me you want me gone.”</p><p>Madison grabs his arm when Hamilton moves to run away, forces him to turn around. There’s something new in his eyes when Hamilton looks into them, some emotion he doesn’t know how to identify.</p><p>“It was my fault!” Madison shouts, blurts out, the words seeming to rip out of his throat. It's so uncharacteristic, so sudden that Hamilton steps back in surprise. “Thomas could've saved you if he'd been there. He's better in a close fight. If I'd just been faster, stronger—” Madison cuts off, his voice thick when he begins again. “I’ve handed you a terrible burden. If I’d done better, none of us would even know you’re immune. Or even if I’d been able to kill you before you turned. And I’m glad you’re alive, Hamilton—truly, I am—but I can’t stop thinking about what I’ve done to you.” He shakes his head, his voice worn out when he finally manages to speak again. "It was my fault. It <em>is </em>my fault."</p><p>Hamilton stares back at him, floored.</p><p>The last few weeks flash before his eyes, play out in slow motion.</p><p>He thinks, thinks back to all the times Madison’s looked at him with pitying eyes over the past weeks, how Madison stares at the red-pink-white mottled scars staining Hamilton's neck, how Madison’s been so careful, so methodical in every movement—and in an instant, everything is cast a new light. The air’s ripped out of Hamilton’s lungs.</p><p>(Madison looks at him, his eyes not pitying—but guilty. Madison is guilty, blaming himself, thinking of Philip Schuyler and where he stood, thinking of Lafayette and Washington, thinking of Hamilton. The picture cuts into Hamilton's mind: Madison laying awake, heart twisting, thinking of him: Hamilton, who begged to die when the fever swept him over, who begged to cross over to The Other Side, who begged to see Laurens again, who screamed on a highway that he should be dead—Hamilton, who should be dead, but isn’t, who has to live with that for the rest of his life, however long it may be).</p><p>(Madison, who is trying to make up for what he’s done, trying to make sure Hamilton has some semblance of safety, of a decent life. Madison, who is trying to save the world, yes, but is also trying to save <em>him—</em>to save Hamilton, because in a department store somewhere in Kentucky, he couldn’t).</p><p>“You could’ve run,” Madison tells him. “I saw you. You had an opening. You could’ve left me. You <em> should’ve </em> run.” Madison steps forward, his dark eyes searching—for what, Hamilton doesn’t know. “Why didn’t you run?” Madison steps forward again, deep into Hamilton’s space. “I’m not a fool. I know you don’t like either of us.” Closer. Despair cuts into Madison's eyes. "And I'm sorry. I tried to make things right, Hamilton. I truly did. But I failed."</p><p>Hamilton’s mouth opens—then closes.</p><p>“I'm trying to do what’s best,” Madison tells him, his voice painfully measured, filled with something Hamilton can't place for a second. It’s desperation, he realizes—a wretched, miserable kind of desperation. He doesn’t know why the hell Madison of all people is so desperate to convince him of something, but he’s too caught off-guard to do anything but listen. “Hamilton, I wake up every goddamned day terrified that I’ll fuck up, that something’ll happen to Thomas. If I could send him to England and know he’d be safe—even if I’d never see him again—I’d do it in an instant. But I can’t. I can't do it for him, and I can't do it for you either.”</p><p>Madison swallows harder, lets composure cloak him, smooth his expression.</p><p>"I want you to be safe, Hamilton. We may not be friends, but I thought I could at least give you that.” Madison's shoulders sink. “I thought your blood was on my hands once. I don’t want that again.”</p><p>"It wasn't your fault," Hamilton says, but he can't make the words mean anything.</p><p>“Why didn't you run?" Madison asks him again, looking for an answer Hamilton can't give him.</p><p>He's close, inches away, too close. If Hamilton—<em>n</em><em>o. </em></p><p>“I don’t…” Hamilton looks away. “I don't know.”</p><p>Madison watches him a moment longer, searching to find something in his face. Finally, he sighs, a frustrated, miserable, guilty sound that seems to come from the very depths of his soul.</p><p>“Please." Madison shakes his head. "Stay in Boston, Alexander. You'll be safer."</p><p>Five minutes ago, Hamilton would've thought it was pity on Madison's face when he walks away.</p><p>He knows better now.</p><p> </p><hr/><p>            </p><p>Hamilton is as lost as he's ever been. He’s coming untethered, losing himself to his thoughts, in danger of drifting into his mind and not coming out. He’s in danger of thinking too long, too hard about New York, about Hercules stranded in the middle of a Redcoat camp, about Laurens and Charleston.</p><p>He goes back to the first-aid tent and digs around the things by the side of his bed. Madison and Jefferson’s things are missing—they’ve apparently retrieved them already—but the radio is still there. Hamilton takes it, tunes it into the channel Hercules gave him. He searches his coat for the dictionary, flips it open. A brief study reveals code is a kind of bastardized Morse code: words in the dictionary are assigned a random number (scrawled in glitter purple pen, Hamilton notes with an almost-smile). Each number one through ten is assigned a series of sounds, as does each letter of the alphabet if there’s a word that needs to be spelled out. It’s simplistic, but the randomness makes it perfectly secure for their purposes.</p><p>“H-e-r-c-u-l-e-s?” Hamilton spells out using the glitter-scrawled code.</p><p>Static crackles. Just when Hamilton’s starting to fear that Hercules isn’t around, a series of clicks comes through. Hamilton hastily scribbles them down, consults the dictionary—</p><p>“You good, man?”</p><p>“Not dead. H-a-r-v-a-r-d with A-d-a-m-s.”</p><p>“Good. Heard an announcement about the library. Was worried.”</p><p>“J-e-f-f-s ear shot. Fine. Little b-i-t-c-h about it: no surprise. M-a-d-i-s-o-n..." He hesitates. "... OK. Both here.”</p><p>“Should’ve made key for swearing.”</p><p>“Make one now.”</p><p>They have an interlude of assigning swear words their own numbers and series of beeps—then think to add their names and a few others. It's a brief interlude, an illusion of normality, evokes a distant memory of sitting with a walkie-talkie hiding beneath his bed, his mother's laughter echoing through the speakers. He brushes the memory away.</p><p>“Ham, gonna ask again. I mean it—you good?”</p><p>Hamilton’s fingers drift to his neck. His mind drifts towards the future: it’s imprecise, cloudy, looks like yellow skies and yellow fevers. It’s been that way for almost two years, but the thought of England had provided him so kind of stability, some certainty of what was ahead—and it’s gone.</p><p>“Yes,” he lies.</p><p>It’s easier over the radio.</p><p>“If you’re not, that’s fine. I know L-a-u-r-e-n-s—"</p><p>“Don’t want to talk about him,” Hamilton signals over him. There’s no response for a few moments, so Hamilton messages again. “What am I supposed to do, Herc?”</p><p>Silence one beat, two, then three. The radio crackles.</p><p>“Don't know. We'll find something else. Until then—” Hamilton closes his eyes. "—stay alive."</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Harvard feels safe. </p><p>Hamilton knows better than to believe it.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He waits for the shoe to drop.</p><p>They’re in Sam Adams’ room—a repurposed dorm (that brings Columbia to mind). There's a nice oak table in the center of the room dragged in from some lounge room, and there’s a nice spread of food: actual meat, vegetables, dried fruit, honey, non-perishable cheese. It’s a poor man’s version of charcuterie board, but Jefferson is delighted—enough to not bitch about the beer Adams serves with it. The blunt edge of the morphine’s clearly worn off: his eyes are sharper, his words more cutting, and he talks fast as he and Adams catch up, almost too fast to follow—like the words will burn his tongue if he doesn’t get them out.</p><p>Hamilton isn’t really sure why he’s been invited: Jefferson and Adams dominate the conversation, flitting sunnily from subject to subject. Adams occasionally brings Madison into the conversation, but it’s clearly only in an attempt to appease Jefferson. Hamilton has no experience in summer homes or wine tasting or bespoke suits, so he mostly stays quiet and enjoys eating something that didn’t come out of a can between bouts of wondering why the fuck he’s there.</p><p>“—Hamilton?” Adams says after half an hour or so.</p><p>Hamilton looks up blankly. He missed whatever conversation preceded it, a fact that’s splashed clearly on his face.</p><p>“I asked what your plans are,” Adams says, amused. “Where do you plan on going from here?”</p><p>Hamilton forces himself not to look to Madison.</p><p>“I don’t know,” he says finally. “I’ll figure it out.”</p><p>“Well,” Adams goes on. “I was impressed at how you handled yourself last night. If you’d like to stay here, there’s a place for you with the Sons.” He smiles—but it's a different smile than the ones he’s given Jefferson all night, warmer in a way that suggests an interest beyond the platonic. “I’m always on the lookout for promising talent.”</p><p>It could be innocent—if Hamilton were a fucking idiot.</p><p>Jefferson isn’t either—he looks between the two of them, his eyes narrowing in on the distinct warmth in Adams’ eyes. Jefferson’s face twists in mixed parts distaste and disbelief: <em>really?</em></p><p>Madison ignores them all.</p><p>A second passes: in it, Hamilton’s mind jumps to his old devotion the revolution, to rising to fight the Redcoats—then to Charleston, to Laurens, to his desire never to be trapped in another city again—and to his neck, to Hercules, to Jefferson and Madison, and to a dozen other things aside.</p><p>“I’ll think about it,” he gets out.</p><p>Hamilton could leave.</p><p>He wants to for a moment, almost even starts to get up—but then he doesn’t.</p><p>He thinks Boston over for the rest of dinner.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton’s supposed to sleep in an old dorm room.</p><p>He can’t. He knows he can’t, won’t be able to—so he doesn’t even bother to try. He climbs onto the roof access and goes to the edge, then leans up at the stars. It always surprises him how many he can see. In New York, it was never really <em>dark. </em>The sun just went away, and neon billboards and street lights and lights spilling out of windows took over. In the end of the world, all that’s gone away.</p><p>It’s dark, it’s cold, and Hamilton can’t sleep, so he tries to find familiarity in the stars—but he doesn't know them anymore either.</p><p>Sometime later—he doesn’t know how much, but his hands are good and numb—voices creep through the air, nearing until their conversation drifts clearly up into the night.</p><p>“… that fine?” a man asks, coming into earshot.</p><p>“Sure,” another answers.</p><p>Hamilton recognizes that voice more easily, leans over the side just to double-check. Down below, he spots a flash of purple and peacock blue-green. The two are stopped by the door.</p><p>“Cigarette?” Adams asks Jefferson, reaching into his pocket.</p><p>“I don’t smoke,” Jefferson replies, superiority plain in his voice. “Makes your teeth yellow.”</p><p>“Oh, like you haven’t had veneers since you were twenty. Besides, you used to smoke like a fuckin’ Parisian. What ever happened to that?”</p><p>A puff of orange skates up the side of the building as Adams lights up.</p><p>“I quit.” Jefferson shrugs. “Got tired of it.”</p><p>“Oh, bullshit—you really think you can stand here and lie to the guy who’s known you since you were still pissing the bed?” Adams blows out a puff of smoke. Hamilton can’t see from his height, but he has to imagine the man’s studying Jefferson, reading him like someone reads a well-worn book. “Let me guess—Madison’s got asthma? Smoke sets it off?” Jefferson must make a face Hamilton can’t see. Adams laughs, but the sound isn’t entirely pleasant. “I’m good, aren’t I?”</p><p>“For the record, I never pissed the bed,” Jefferson impertinently defends himself. “That was you.”</p><p>“So little-five-year-old Tommy never went to bed crying because one of the older boys told him ghost stories? Bull-fucking-shit, man.”</p><p>“Again—<em>you </em>.”</p><p>They trade a few amicable accusations, reference stories Hamilton doesn’t know. Hamilton doesn’t particularly want to go back inside, but he feels like as much of an outsider as ever eavesdropping in on a friendship he isn’t a part of. Besides, his fingers are only a few minutes away from turning black. He moves to go back inside. Maybe he can find somewhere else to sleep. Back to the medical tent, maybe? It wasn't terrible in there.</p><p>“… Hamilton’s asleep?” Adams says, and the mention of his name pricks his attention, draws him back.</p><p>“Probably not. Have you seen the kid’s dark circles? He works for them, let me tell you that.”</p><p>“Doesn’t surprise me.” Adams seems to consider his next words carefully. “What do you think of him?”</p><p>Jefferson pauses a moment.</p><p>“Fuck it, give me one of those,” he says a moment later. A second puff of light punctures the night. Jefferson drags in a pull, coughs—<em> fucking humiliating— </em>recovers after a hacking fit, tells Adams to shut up and stop laughing until his friend complies. “Look, I don’t know what you want me to tell you. He’s an adult. He can make decisions for himself—if he wants to stay in Boston, then he can fuckin’ stay in Boston. But you know we can’t. The further away we are from Redcoats, the better.”</p><p>“Did you forget I’m a politician too?” Adams flatly asks. “I know when you’re avoiding a question.”</p><p>Sweet tobacco smoke rises into the air, stings Hamilton’s nose.</p><p>“He’s smart. Fast. Not bad with a gun,” Jefferson concedes after a moment.</p><p>“Jesus, when’d you get so fucking cagey? You sound just like Madison.”</p><p>Jefferson scowls, takes a long draw from his cigarette. Hamilton imagines his brows have drifted together, imagines the way one corner of his mouth twists down just like it always does when he’s thinking about something. It’s hard to tell how much time passes, but it’s certainly a few seconds before Jefferson finally replies, his voice deliberate and measured.</p><p>“I think he’s lonely,” he says. “Not that he’d ever admit it. I wouldn’t, if I were him.” Jefferson sighs wearily, huffs in more smoke. “If something happened to Madison, that’s how I’d be.”</p><p>It’s bullshit.</p><p>Hamilton is fine on his own. He doesn’t need them. He was just doing what was best for himself in the moment, acting in his best interests to survive.</p><p>(But he didn’t on a rooftop in Virginia or a department store in Kentucky or outside a public library in Boston, did he?)</p><p>“It would’ve been Madison if it hadn’t been him, you know,” Jefferson says. An inhaled breath pierces the air, his fragile words growing sharper as he speaks. “I don’t know what I would’ve done. I was gonna marry him, Sam. I had it all planned out. I remodeled Monticello to be ready for him to move in. I had a ring. We had appointed jobs—no more fuckin’ worrying over votes. All the Representatives were a fuckin’ joke, but we came <em>so </em>damn close to being more than that. We had the leader, the Declaration—Christ, I was gonna ask him <em>that day!</em> I mean, it wouldn't have meant anything, not legally, but we were so <em>close, </em>Sam. I came so fucking close to <em>everything.”</em></p><p>Silence. Jefferson drops the barely-there end of his cigarette, lets it burn out at his feet.</p><p>“I owe Hamilton,” Jefferson finishes a minute later. “He’s a little shit and he gets on my fuckin’ nerves and God knows I want to... <em>fuck</em>. Look, if he stays here, just take care of him, alright? He doesn’t need you to—and God knows he's too much of a prideful, spiteful shit to let you if he knows that’s what you’re doing—but he shouldn’t have to be alone.” A pause, a soft exhale, unusual softness. "I don't want him to be alone."</p><p>Adams thinks a long few seconds.</p><p>“You think he’ll stay?”</p><p>“Fuck if I know.” Jefferson plucks the cigarette out of Adams’ mouth, takes a drawl despite Adams’ swearing, returning to his usual tone. “He doesn’t even like us, for fuck’s sake.”</p><p>“There’s a big fuckin’ dissonance between what he says and what he does, in case you haven’t noticed,” Adams scoffs, lighting another cigarette. “If you ask me, he’s afraid of liking you. You give a shit about someone, you have something to lose. I mean, shit—how much can one person lose before they’re spent?”</p><p>Jefferson makes a sound somewhere between thoughtful and derisive. A long silence passes between the two men—so long, Hamilton almost thinks they’ve gone inside. But Jefferson breaks the silence at last, his voice thick and sad when he speaks.</p><p>“I wish I could stay, Sam. I really fuckin’ do.”</p><p>Adams’s sigh drifts up into the night, swallowed up by the dark.</p><p>“I know, Thomas.”            </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Boston.</p><p>Hamilton lies in bed and tries to think about Boston.</p><p><em> Fuck Boston, </em>he hears Jefferson intone.</p><p>What future does he have here? But then again, what future does he have anywhere else? Does he just go back to scrapping out a living in the suburbs? Does he go with Jefferson and Madison?</p><p>Boston.</p><p>Boston’s home to what’s left of the Revolution, to what’s left of Hamilton’s friends, to the warmth in Sam Adams’ smile—but the warmth in Laurens’ always comes back, always twists his stomach, always makes him turn over in bed, always forces him to think of something else.</p><p><em>Fuck</em> <em> Boston.</em></p><p>Hamilton twists.</p><p>
  <em> Revolution Cure Charleston Redcoats— </em>
</p><p>He can’t sleep: surprise.</p><p>
  <em> Madison Jefferson Hercules Adams Laurens— </em>
</p><p>How long until the sun rises?</p><p>
  <em> Alone alone alone alone alone— </em>
</p><p>He’s—<em> you can’t— </em> he can—<em>th</em><em>ere’s nothing here for you— </em>there could be.</p><p>Hamilton shoves his face into the cold side of his pillow. By the time it starts to get just as unpleasantly hot as the side he escaped, his mind is made up.</p><p>He’s going to—shit, he’s going to stay.</p><p>The decision rings through his mind, the death knell to a thousand other potential futures. But even as he thinks it, the burden on his shoulder eases, gives his lungs room to expand with air. The future takes an indistinct shape in his mind: a British ship disappearing over the horizon, a pint of beer with Hercules, a haven for them to construct their own cure.</p><p>
  <em> Peacock blue-green. </em>
</p><p>Hamilton closes his eyes.</p><p>The other shoe drops.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The door <em> clicks </em>as the lock comes softly undone.</p><p>Hamilton’s yanked out of unconsciousness immediately, but it takes him another second to gather his bearings, to hear the door swing near-silently open. Footsteps, deliberately soft, enter.</p><p>He struggles a moment to make out who’s in his room in the middle of the night, but it’s pitch-black, impossible to tell. He could ask, but that’d give away that he’s awake. Silently, Hamilton slides his hand beneath his pillow, curls his fingers around the hilt of his knife.</p><p>Footsteps creep closer, closer—to the side of his bed.</p><p>Hamilton can’t even make out the outline of the person standing over him. Sweat beads on his brow. He weighs the odds that it’s someone he knows, that it’s someone that’s accidentally made their way into his room. Surely Madison or Jefferson or Adams wouldn’t be stupid enough to pull this stunt, wouldn't think to sneak up on someone like him in his sleep.</p><p>“<em>Hamilton!”</em> a voice yells somewhere down the hall: an alarm.</p><p>Hamilton lunges, tackles the person at his bed, swings wildly until he’s got his knife above his assailant’s neck, posed to pierce the hollow of their throat.</p><p>“Don’t fucking move,” he threatens, voice low and hollow.</p><p>They move, grasp for a gun that’s skittered out of reach.</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t hesitate.</p><p>The door’s thrown open, cracks into the plaster wall. Harsh white light floods the room, reveals the person under Hamilton’s grasp—a woman, a face he doesn’t recognize—and Adams in the doorway, a rifle aimed at Hamilton’s chest. Adams takes just enough time to identify the women and to swear, then he stalks forward, pulls Hamilton up by his shoulder, aims at the woman—<em> headshot</em>.</p><p>“Get your things,” he orders, swinging his rifle back to the doorway. “You’ve got to go.”</p><p>Hamilton’s mind is racing, kicked into fight-or-flight. He doesn’t waste time on questions, doesn’t waste a moment on the woman dead on the floor, doesn’t do anything but grab his things, follow Adams. Adams moves swiftly, cautiously, checking around corners before he turns. They stop outside another door, Hamilton watching as Adams raps once, twice, insistent against the wood.</p><p>With no background noise from whistling pipes or heaters, it’s quiet enough to make out the muffled swearing inside the room, grumbled conversation, rustling.</p><p>“What the <em> fuck </em> do you want?” Jefferson’s pissed voice comes through the door.</p><p>“It’s Sam—open the goddamn door.”</p><p>There's only a second before the door swings open.</p><p>“Sam, what the hell do you want? Hamilton, what are—Jesus, why are you covered in blood?”</p><p>“It’s not mine.”</p><p>“Why the fuck are you saying that like it’s going to calm me down!”</p><p>Adams shoves Hamilton into the room.</p><p>“I’ll cover the door. Help them pack.”</p><p>Jefferson squawks indignantly, but Hamilton ignores him, starts throwing their things together. Their shit is all over the room, seriously, why the <em>hell—</em>Hamilton looks up to where Madison is lying on the bed staring fixedly at the ceiling, unmoving, murder in his eyes. The blankets are bunched up over him, but beneath them—the realization slices even through the adrenaline of the moment, Hamilton’s once again hit with the <em>Madison and Jefferson fuck </em>frying pan.</p><p>“Hamilton,” Madison’s voice cuts through the quiet, all faux calm. “Is whatever brought you to my room at three AM a more pressing threat than the violence I’m inclined to commit in this moment?”</p><p>“Someone tried to shoot me in my fucking sleep, so my vote’s <em> yes</em>,” Hamilton snaps.</p><p>“He’s right—I need you all out of here <em> now. </em>Get dressed. No time to explain,” Adams urgently orders them from the doorway.</p><p>Jefferson throws Madison a pair of sweatpants from where he’s hastily dressing by the door, then joins Hamilton in getting everything together. Madison is up a second later, half-dressed, grabbing for a shirt—and then they’re all out the door, their bags hoisted over their backs. Adams speeds through the halls, takes them out a side exit—stops abruptly.</p><p>Hamilton almost slams into his back.</p><p>He recovers just in time, starts to lift his gun. There’s three people in front of them, each of them in different states of aiming their own weapons. Eyes fall onto Sam Adams, and time seems to still.</p><p>Adams blinks at the trio a moment, his head dipping to the side in consideration. He steps forward. His shoulders broaden as he draws himself up, using every six and a half feet of his height.</p><p>"I know,” Adams begins, his voice cut crystal-smooth with anger, “that this isn’t what it looks like, is it?”</p><p>The three look among themselves, but none answer.</p><p>“Because it looks like you were coming to pay our guests a visit,” Adams goes on, “and I would look <em>very</em> unkindly upon anyone showing them that kind of hospitality.”</p><p>He steps forwards, looming over them all.</p><p>“But that’s not what’s going on here. <em> Is it?” </em></p><p>None of the three reply—but none make any move to raise their weapons a little higher either.</p><p>“Good. Now get the <em> fuck out of my way,” </em>Adams snarls—and that’s finally effective in getting them to react.</p><p>Adams turns around once they’ve scattered, grabs back onto Hamilton’s shoulder, half-drags him through the camp. It’s near-abandoned at this point in the night, quiet—the camp’s clearly not under attack—but Hamilton still feels eyes on him, feels stares prickling the back of his neck. Madison and Jefferson feel them too—they’re pressed against each other, exchanging silent eye-contact conversation. They’re nervous, unsettled, move just as fast as they can without breaking into a sprint. At last they reach the far end of the camp. Adams yanks open the door of the nearest Humvee, turns.</p><p>“Get in,” he orders, “and then get down.”</p><p>Hamilton does.</p><p>Adams revs the Jeep to life, pulls out of the lot with a screech, drives to the gates.</p><p>“Open them,” he orders the Sons stationed there, barely rolling down the windows. Hamilton cocks his pistol. There’s a pause on the soldiers’ part that doesn’t go unnoticed. Adams rolls the window down the rest of the way, leans out and flashes his teeth. “They might be leaving this city, but I’m not. I’ve been here for a damn long time, and I’ll be here a damn long time after this. Understand?”</p><p>The gates open.</p><p>Adams speeds onto the open roads, narrowly swerving past abandoned cars and not even bothering to swerve around corpses. He checks the rear-view mirror constantly, paranoia plain.</p><p>“Will someone tell me what the fuck’s going on?” Jefferson asks after a minute. Adams is too busy trying not to send them careening into crashed cars to answer, so Jefferson’s eyes fall onto Hamilton, assessing him, looking for injuries. “Who tried to kill you?”</p><p>“I don’t know!” Hamilton snaps back, irritated. “Redcoat? Clearly not a secret goddamn admirer!”</p><p>“Sam?” Jefferson prompts the man, aggravation in his eyes.</p><p>“I need directions—where’d you last have your car when the Redcoats brought you in?”</p><p>“Exit 24, just past Mile Marker 121,” Madison answers, a smokescreen of calm. “We pulled off, then hid the Escalade behind a house a couple miles off the exit.”</p><p>Realizing he’s not going to get an answer, Jefferson falls into his seat, shaking his head. His hands twitch, fists clenching and unclenching until Madison reaches over, lays a hand on his thigh.</p><p>“We’re fine, Thomas,” Madison’s quiet voice reassures him.</p><p>Jefferson barely seems to hear him, fidgeting. He finally leans forward in a burst of energy.</p><p>“Why’s Hamilton with us? The Crown’s problems with us have nothing to do with him. <em> We’re </em>the ones with the goddamn targets painted on our backs. I mean, how the fuck’s he gotten caught up in all this?”</p><p>Adams finally looks back at them, his face a cocktail of emotions—none of them good.</p><p>“It’s bad, Thomas,” is all he says. “It’s real fucking bad.”</p><p>Hamilton closes his eyes and tries to escape in his thoughts.</p><p>The future slips between his fingers.</p><p>The Humvee’s engine roars when they hit the highway. Hamilton imagines the speedometer in his mind, ticking up past 100, 110, 120. He pictures Boston’s skyline fading in the background. He sees the open, empty road stretching ahead of them.</p><p>Madison’s voice is a distant murmur as he directs Adams, a noise that pierces Hamilton’s thoughts with all the effectiveness of a gunshot underwater. Jefferson and Adams hop in occasionally, but Hamilton may as well be on the other end of the universe.</p><p>The car stops. Hamilton doesn’t know how long it’s been.</p><p>He opens his ears, mechanically gets out, falling back on his oldest instinct—<em>survive. </em></p><p>Adams rounds to the Humvee’s trunk, unloads a couple cases of food, a duffel bag of unknown contents, a metal box with the words <em> Royal Army </em>splashed across the side.</p><p>“Grenades,” he explains as he pushes them into Madison’s hands. Madison nearly buckles beneath the box’s weight, surprise flashing on his face—but he manages not to drop it. “Don’t fucking waste them.”</p><p>Hamilton helps Jefferson haul things into the backseat of the Escalade while Adams returns to the front of the car, lights a cigarette, turns on the radio and listens.</p><p>“Seriously, Sam,” Jefferson says, rounding on him. “Look—we’re out of the city. We’re not dead. We’re at our damn car. We’re alone. Will you <em> please </em>tell me what the hell’s so fuckin’ urgent that you had to drag us out of bed at four in the morning?”</p><p>Adams runs a hand over his face.</p><p>“It’s not four in the morning,” he weightily replies. “Not over there.”</p><p>Jefferson steps back. Undiluted horror splashes across Madison’s face.</p><p>“What have they done?” Madison asks tautly, his tongue wetting his lips.</p><p>Adams looks between the two of them—then to Hamilton standing behind them. He hesitates. The radio crackles to life just as his mouth opens.</p><p>
  <em> “Sons of Anarchy vehicle spotted taking Exit 24 on Highway I-90. Calling any battalions in the area to investigate and detain any Sons present.” </em>
</p><p>Adams mouth closes. His face hardens.</p><p>“I’m going to lead them out—no fucking Redcoat can outmaneuver me on my own goddamn roads.” He pulls his gun, checks the chamber. “Give me a five-minute head start, then get the hell out of here. Get off the interstate as soon as you can and head southwest. Keep away from the coasts—that’s where the Redcoats are centered. Don’t fuck around with any cities. Hamilton, have you still got that radio?”</p><p>“Yes,” is all he gets out.</p><p>Adams cuts him off before any of them can say anything else.</p><p>“Good. Don’t lose it. I’ll reach you through Mulligan, keep you updated.”</p><p>“What are we afraid of?” Madison cuts in, too forceful to be brushed aside. “We’re standing in the goddamn dark here. What’ve they done? Why’s Hamilton coming with us?”</p><p>Adams’ face screws in regret.</p><p>“When you’re an hour out of Boston, turn on the radio.”</p><p>“To what channel?”</p><p>“Jesus—any channel. They're broadcasting it everywhere. It’s on a loop, won’t fucking stop—I tried.”</p><p>The radio crackles back to life, squads confirming they’re nearby, that they’ve gotten the order—Adams moves forwards, sweeps Jefferson into a crushing hug.</p><p>“Stay safe out there, man.”</p><p>Then, to Madison—a nod, stiff, formal, accompanied by a handshake, They exchange no words, but Hamilton imagines an unspoken truce of sorts between them: <em> keep Jefferson alive. </em></p><p>And then to Hamilton. Adams stands in front of him a moment, a glimpse of uncertainty on his face for just a second. What is there to say? There’s a half-second delay—then Adams smiles a politician’s smile, bright and dazzling and not quite authentic.</p><p>“I’m glad I had the chance to meet you,” he says.</p><p>“Yeah,” Hamilton agrees, his throat dry. “Me too.”</p><p>The end of the world is filled with all the things that might’ve been.</p><p>Adams leans in.</p><p>“And Hamilton?” he says, too quiet to be overheard. “You’re not alone.”</p><p>And then he’s gone, climbing into the Humvee.</p><p>Jefferson hovers by the door with worry plastered on his face.</p><p>“Are you going to be alright?” he asks Adams through the open window.</p><p>He looks over.</p><p>“I’m Samuel fuckin’ Adams.” He claps Jefferson’s shoulder, grins his politician grin. “If the boy who pissed his bed until he was ten can make it this long, then my chances look pretty damn good.”</p><p>Jefferson huffs a sad, defeated laugh.</p><p>“Ten’s an exaggeration.”</p><p>Adams cranes his neck back, meets Hamilton’s eyes, smirks.</p><p>“No—it’s not.”</p><p>He shoots them all one last smile—then Humvee tears away.</p><p>There’s no place for peacock blue-green in Hamilton’s future.</p><p> </p><hr/><p>  </p><p>Madison drives.</p><p>The car is silent.</p><p>The minutes tick away one-by-one. They could turn on the radio now, but once they do—well, Adams didn’t personally drag them out of Boston over an empty threat. Whatever illusion they’ve been living under is going to be shattered—<em>is </em>already shattered. They’re only oblivious to how it's broken, still floating in blissful ignorance. Or a blissful half-ignorance, at least.</p><p>An hour passes. No one makes a move towards the radio.</p><p>The sun creeps up over the horizon. It’s a beautiful sunset, but Hamilton isn’t watching.</p><p>It’s eight in the morning; it’s three in the afternoon in England.</p><p>Jefferson turns on the radio.</p><p>A blaring royal march comes through the car. Horns and trumpets and drums swell in obnoxious crescendos. It takes the chorus coming in for Hamilton to identify the song.</p><p>“<em>make them fall… Confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks...” </em></p><p>“Is this the fucking British national anthem?” Jefferson scowls. He reaches forward, changes the channel. There’s only the briefest of pauses before the national anthem blares through again. The same thing happens on the next channel and the next: Adams wasn’t kidding; they can't escape the recording unless they turn the whole radio off.</p><p><em> “God save the King!” </em>the chorus warbles.</p><p>“Oh my god, he changed the fucking lyrics,” Jefferson says. “I’m gonna—”</p><p>“—declare Independence?” Hamilton dryly tries to joke.</p><p>The song ends. Before Jefferson can get in a reply—</p><p>“Hellooo!” a nauseatingly British voice sings. The three of them stop short, eyes drawn to the speaker.</p><p>“Jesus Christ, that’s not—"</p><p>“This is your King speaking, wishing a wonderful morning to all my loyal American subjects!” King George’s voice proclaims, manically cheerful—and yet, in the span of a second, it darkens to something that fills Hamilton’s stomach with dread. “And to all my wayward colonists…” Hysterical laughter interrupts his sentence. “Well, I expect I’ll be seeing you <em> very </em>soon.”</p><p>Madison is staring determinedly straight ahead with terrified eyes, Jefferson’s face is going grey with horror, Hamilton’s stomach is twisting, throwing itself against his ribcage.</p><p>“But I’m here with an announcement for <em> all </em> of those currently in America, regardless of your current allegiance.” He can’t. (He can). “I’ve just gotten word that the separatists Thomas Jefferson and James Madison are alive and well in Boston, in no small part due to the actions of <em> alleged </em> former Columbia student Alexander Hamilton—you know, the feisty little guy that laid out Henry Laurens that one time? That one. Well…” George pauses dramatically. “…imagine my surprise when I found out my dear friend General Benedict Arnold was heartlessly assassinated in an unprovoked attack by Madison and Jefferson—and that their escape was aided and abetted by none other than little Hamilton, who feigned immunity in order to gain access to my residence.”</p><p>“No,” Jefferson groans despairingly, burying his face in his hands. “Don’t fucking do it.”</p><p>“And, well, I have <em> delightful </em>news for all my colonists: whoever brings me any of these men will be admitted into my current residence at Windsor Palace with any number of guests of their choosing, where they’ll be fed, clothed, and protected by my personal guard until your natural deaths,” the king croons, ending his sentence with another laugh. “Alive would be preferred—but I’m willing to make concessions if necessary. I understand goods sometimes get damaged during shipping, after all.”</p><p>That’s it.</p><p>That’s all.</p><p>That’s the death knell. They’re all hopelessly, irrevocably, miserably <em> fucked. </em></p><p>Hamilton’s going to die. He’s going to die and he’s maybe humanity’s only hope for a cure and he’s going to <em>die</em> because either no one told the king he’s immune or the king just doesn’t care and <em>holy</em> <em>shit </em>they’re all going to <em>die</em>—Hamilton’s head thumps hard against the headrest. He can’t breathe.</p><p>“Now, in case you’ve forgotten what any of these men look like—because they’re quite forgettable, if I say so myself—Thomas Jefferson is supposedly six something feet tall, though I imagine reports of his height are exaggerated…” The car comes to a stop as Madison throws the crook of his elbow over his face. “Oh, and who could forget pint-sized James Madison? You’ll be able to identify him by his dead-eyed stare and the fact that he’s always one gust of wind away from being blown over…”</p><p>“And, of course, I couldn’t forget Alexander Hamilton. It really <em> was </em>a treat to see him get into it with Henry Laurens—and it’s so wonderful to hear he appears to look just as ratty as ever! Apparently, he’s sticking with that scraggly ponytail of his—a shocking choice, given I thought the homosexuals were supposed to have good style…”</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t hear the rest. The blood in his ears rushes his head, makes him dizzy. Fear overwhelms him, sinks cold fingers around his heart—<em>going to die going to die going to die— </em>he bites his tongue until blood wells in his mouth. The coppery taste grounds him, gives him something else to focus on. He swirls it in his mouth, swallows, gradually is able to loosen his jaw back up.</p><p>If he’s bleeding, he’s not dead yet. If he’s not dead yet, he’s going to fight. He drags himself down, walks himself away from the edge, centers himself until he can see, breathe, hear again.</p><p>“Oh,” the king giggles, “And for those of you interested in a bit of gossip about your beloved separatists Jefferson and Madison—”</p><p>“I’ll fucking kill him,” Jefferson threatens, horror mounting as he realizes what’s coming.</p><p>“—I’m getting word that the two are in bed together with more than just politics!”</p><p>Somehow, out of everything, that’s what pisses off Jefferson most. He lets a furious jumbled sound somewhere between a scream and a swear. Viciously, he swings the car door open, storms outside, slams the door so hard the car shakes. Hamilton watches him through the windshield as he storms down the road, swearing and shouting and kicking dead infected along the way. An infected hobbles out of the woods towards him—Jefferson kneecaps it with a shot, comes down on it with the heel of his shoe, shouting things neither of them can make out.</p><p>The recording says more, but neither he nor Madison are listening any longer. Madison’s eyes are looking through Jefferson, out at something well beyond them all.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Hamilton finally says, awkward. “I know that’s—uh…”</p><p>“We were supposed to come out after Washington was sworn in,” Madison absentmindedly tells him, half-present. His mind is elsewhere. “Our positions were appointed, so we didn’t have to worry about votes.” His voice quiets; he's not talking to Hamilton anymore. “It was always about the votes, always about our careers, our reputations. And what did that get me in the end? Nothing<em>. </em>Not a damned thing.”</p><p>Madison’s fingers restlessly tap against the steering wheel. It’s the first time Hamilton has ever really watched him tap—and with a start, Hamilton realizes Madison’s playing piano. Not literally, of course—but his fingers dance and skitter in clear strains, playing silently against the wheel. A silent melody unravels below his fingers, crescendos, falls. After a minute, his fingers still as the song comes to an end.</p><p>Madison's eyes sharpen.</p><p>“I’ll go talk to him,” Madison says after another moment. “Stay here.”</p><p>He leaves, and Hamilton is alone.</p><p>Through the windshield, he sees Madison approach, lay a hand on Jefferson’s shoulder. The other man tenses up, looks ready to shake him off—then he sighs deeply, deflating. Despite the eight-something inch advantage he has over Madison, he somehow looks like the smaller of the two.</p><p>The two talk for a long, long time.</p><p>Finally, Jefferson uncrosses his arms.</p><p>Jefferson turns around, and, impossibly, he smiles. It’s not a politician’s smile or some other pretense. It’s wholly human, cracked at the edges and frayed and soured with more than a little hurt—but most human of all, it’s hopeful. Hope in the face of despair, defiance in the face of the inevitable, rebellion against the misery that accompanies existence: even in the end of the world, even beneath the threat of oblivion, Jefferson and Madison have something to hold onto.</p><p>They have each other.</p><p>What does Hamilton have?</p><p>An open road, an unmade legacy, a photo strip from a West Virginian mall.</p><p>He has a drive to stay alive, but does he have hope?</p><p>Madison and Jefferson share a long kiss. When they break away, Jefferson’s face nestles in the crook of Madison’s neck. They hold onto each other.</p><p>Hamilton’s throat dries.</p><p>He should look away.</p><p>He doesn’t.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>and that concludes the boston arc! thank you all for so much for your continued comments!!! y'all are really blessing me rn... i swear, i read all my comments like, five times a day. and then go write for like an hour. so thanks again asldkfjaslkdfj </p><p>a few random notes:<br/>-sam adams' face claim here is kyle scatliffe<br/>-i really thought boston was below nyc before writing this chapter and googling a map... yikes<br/>-yes king George is gay. yes hes homophobic. yes they exist. yes this fic is like 20% an excuse for me write apeshit kgiii what about it—<br/>-i'm going to make this a series. this fic will be told only from hamilton's POV, but there's some other things in this universe both pre and post apocalypse that i want to explore with different characters, so i'll add in a few other fics as i go along and link to them before/after each chapter depending on at what point i think they should be read</p><p>alright--that's all i can think of for now! thank you again to my beta m (@washingtononyourside) for their undying dedication aslkdfjaslkf. let me know what you thought!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. This Side of a Sizable Divide</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A little shorter than usual, but a packed arc. The next few arcs might also be shorter--relatively speaking--but, well, less words, less writing time!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s the quietest car drive of Hamilton’s life.</p><p>The gas meter dips below a quarter tank, but Madison drives on.</p><p>Jefferson’s eyes are closed, but he’s awake.</p><p>Hamilton sits still, but he’s a second away from pulling a <em> stop, drop, roll </em> out of the car.</p><p>He still can’t wrap his mind around just how absolutely fucked they are, but he knows it’s pretty, pretty fucked. They run into survivors once or twice a month, but they’ve always hung back, left, never stayed long enough or gotten close enough to let themselves get identified. And it’s worked—but most of that has to be because, in the public’s mind, Jefferson and Madison have been dead since July 4th, 2011. People see what they want to see; they won’t see two Cabinet members if they think the Cabinet’s all six feet under.</p><p>But now? Now that everyone knows they’re alive? Knows to look for three men matching their descriptions? Now that half the country’s probably actively looking for them?</p><p>Even Sons of Anarchy were willing to go turncoat on them, tempted by the comforts of the king’s palace. What's that say about everyone else?</p><p>Fucked. Fucked Fucked <em> Fuckedfuckingfucked— </em></p><p>“Jesus, I mean—how many people do you think still listen to the radio?” Hamilton asks, searching desperately for some kind of reassurance that things aren’t as bad as they look.</p><p>“Other than every goddamn Redcoat left on this side of the ocean?” Jefferson retorts. “Plenty of fuckin’ Sons of Anarchy, clearly. Word-of-mouth’s gonna take it from there. Oh! And I just remembered this great little fucking tidbit: the last goddamn thing half the fuckin’ country saw my goddamn face on national TV while the Cabinet got slaughtered! How fucking fantastic is that? Isn’t that great, Madison? We’re the fucking ringmasters of the shitshow!"</p><p>Hamilton should leave.</p><p>Fewer people will recognize him. Being around Madison and Jefferson is a liability to him. The two of them will never split up, but Hamilton can still cling on to some semblance of anonymity. The king’s description of him was precise, exact, but—Hamilton can cut his hair. He can change the way he dresses. He can hide beneath hats and sunglasses and change the way he walks and talks, become someone that even he can’t recognize as himself in the mirror.</p><p>Hamilton makes the mistake of looking to the front seat.</p><p>He sees Jefferson pretending to be asleep again, his eyes shut viciously tightly, his mouth torn into a grimace. Sees Madison, fingers skittering wildly against the steering wheel, uncertain, unclear.</p><p>
  <em> You have to look out for yourself. </em>
</p><p>Hamilton looks out the window.</p><p>Massachusetts passes outside.</p><p>He needs to stay alive. Needs to be there when Sam Adams calls their radio, tells them where Hamilton’s got to go so they can develop a vaccine. His life is worth that much. He has to be the key to the cure.</p><p>(He doesn’t want to be—)</p><p>“We should stop,” Hamilton finally says hours later when the sun begins to start its descent.</p><p>Jefferson's eyes stay closed. Madison's are open, but he doesn’t react.</p><p>“Madison,” Hamilton tries again: still nothing. Hamilton begins to lean forward to shake Madison's shoulder, but Jefferson suddenly blinks awake, grabs his hand and holds it still a beat.</p><p>“Don’t,” Jefferson warns him. “He’s thinking.”</p><p>"Uh, isn't he always?"</p><p>“Not like he is right now." Jefferson closes his eyes, sinks back into his seat. "Think fucking with him while he’s meditating, 'cept he’s in a bad mood to begin with.”</p><p>Apparently deciding that’s enough explanation, Jefferson goes back to blocking out the world. It’s another two hours before Madison straightens in his seat, Jefferson following close behind.</p><p>“Well?” Jefferson asks, wary.</p><p>“I've looked at it from every angle and concluded that we’re fucked,” Madison bluntly answers, not hesitating a second.</p><p>“Oh, great! Jefferson, you’re the most optimistic person here. What’s your verdict?”</p><p>“I’m not an optimist," he scowls.</p><p>“Yeah, and if you ever fucking listened, you’d know that I said the <em> most </em>optimistic.”</p><p>“Fine! Since you suddenly wanna hear what the hell I have to say, I agree with Madison. We’re fucked.”</p><p>“Stop bickering,” Madison orders, sighing. Reluctantly—maybe even hopefully—he looks in the rear-view mirror. “Hamilton, would you like to weigh in?”</p><p>Hamilton shifts, his eyes flicking back out the window. He wants to answer differently, but the reality of the situation's long since settled over him.</p><p>“I think you both covered it: fucked. Beyond belief.”</p><p>Jefferson scrubs his hands over his face, gets out a laugh that’s mostly sunny, just a little hysteria-tinged.</p><p>“Great! The three of us agree on something—that might be a first. We should fuckin’ scrapbook this, don’t you think?” Jefferson kicks his feet up on the dash, laughs again. “This takes the cake for worst fucking trip to Boston too. I got <em> kidnapped</em>, fucking <em> shot, </em> and people tried to kill me in <em> the middle of the night!</em>”</p><p>Jefferson’s face twists with barely suppressed anger, but he calms himself with a deep inhale, unbuckles his seatbelt—despite Madison’s disapproving look—so he can lean back uninhibited.</p><p>“For once, I find myself believing that your hatred of Boston is justified,” Madison says after a moment, but the bitterness in his face is light years away from matching Jefferson's.</p><p>“I wish the Redcoats had fucking nuked it when they had the chance.”</p><p>In an unheard-of first, Hamilton finds himself agreeing with them both for the second time in a row.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton sees Madison and Jefferson in the library.</p><p>Jefferson sees Hamilton.</p><p>And the bullet hits him.</p><p>Only this time when Adams brushes away Jefferson’s hair, the bullet's hit its mark, spilled his soul out the side of his skull onto the floor. Madison’s horrified sob rings out, Redcoats swarm, someone grabs Hamilton’s arm—Hamilton cries out, swings wildly, almost clips Jefferson in the jaw.</p><p>“Fuck! Watch it!” Jefferson swears, just barely dodging.</p><p>Hamilton’s chest heaves, eyes wild as he looks around—the car. They’re in the car. They’re safe—Jefferson’s fine. Jefferson’s fine. Boston’s a thousand miles away. He’s alright.</p><p>Just a nightmare.</p><p>Hamilton’s breathing slows; gradually, he’s aware of the weight of Jefferson’s hand still on his arm, of the irritation on his face—and hidden under that, the worry. Hamilton knows how to handle irritation; worry is another thing.</p><p>“Thanks,” he gets out, tongue thick. He looks out the window, shifts so his body’s angled away, folded defensively in on itself. “Sorry.”</p><p>If there’s a question lingering on Jefferson’s lips, he doesn’t ask.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>A day passes, and then another.</p><p>They all crack differently.</p><p>Hamilton regresses to Nevis, to his survival state of mind. He’s back to walking on the balls of his feet, back to constantly checking his shoulder, back to doing everything for himself, lulled out of the vague sense of security Madison and Jefferson have brought him. Jefferson tries to help him shoulder open a door; Hamilton refuses his assistance, does it himself. Madison offers to fix him a cup of coffee as he makes tea; Hamilton declines and makes a cup on his own anyways.</p><p>The angles in Jefferson’s face get sharper, and his tongue whittles itself into a finely carved point. He stays angry, a low kind of anger that simmers and simmers until it boils over in outbursts against an infected that crosses their path, against blocked-off doors and empty pantries. Jefferson reinvents swearing, perfects it, conjures up storms of cursing that sweep even Hamilton away.</p><p>Madison keeps it together best, never lets anything deep enough under his skin to conjure up anything but a disapproving tick of his mouth—or so Hamilton’s tricked into believing.</p><p>A handful of days after the announcement, one night, sounds in their current house's kitchen draw him in. Hamilton finds Madison seated at the kitchen island, expression pleasantly glazed, at least half a dozen shots deep into a bottle of vodka. Madison blinks up at him as he enters, his eyes remarkably focused given the sway in his shoulders. Another time, it might be a surprise—Madison only ever has a glass or two of wine with dinner, drinks for the taste, not to get drunk. Hamilton's seen him on the sober side of tipsy before, but only a handful of times. Drunk is new—but understandable.</p><p>Hamilton keeps his voice soft and his feet quiet as he pads into the kitchen, drops into the seat adjacent to Madison’s.</p><p>“Where’d you find that?” he asks with a motion towards the bottle—good stuff, top-shelf.</p><p>“Study,” Madison answers, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes as if it’ll sober him up. Given just how thick the scent of vodka is in the air, Hamilton’s willing to wager it’s not going to help. “Couldn’t sleep. Haven’t been able to.”</p><p>Hamilton swallows a couple shots’ worth of liquor from the bottle, considers the label to avoid eye contact.</p><p>“Nightmares?” he asks when the burn in his throat fades.</p><p>“Yes,” Madison says, point-blank—and that’s how Hamilton knows he’s drunk. Madison’s never so succinct, always uses about five words more than he needs to. “But getting to sleep is harder than staying that way, ‘n I don’t want to keep Thomas awake.” He shakes his head. The motion looks liable to make him fall out of his seat. “I miss the good days of having a hand on—a bottle of Ambien on hand.”</p><p>Hamilton arches his brows, disbelieving.</p><p>“You took Ambien?”</p><p>“Mm. Sometimes. On the campaign trail.”  Madison reaches forward, nearly knocks over the bottle before he wraps his fingers around the neck. He brings the mouth to his lips, drinks, screws his eyes shut. “I never thought I would miss it. Complete hell—so many <em> sss </em>… ah, what’s the word… soulless! Soulless hotels—awful art. Awful sleep schedule. And still—I miss it. Surprises me sometimes.”</p><p>“Yeah? What’s the stupidest thing you miss?”</p><p>“Color coordinating my tieker—that is, handkerchiefs with my ties,” he longingly answers, the sting nostalgia only made bearable from alcohol. “I loved that. So few people appreciate the sub—<em> subtle </em> difference between hues. Jefferson always did.”</p><p>“And you think fashion advice from the jackass that dresses like he came straight from the goddamn met gala is worth listening to?” Hamilton asks, mouth twisting wryly.</p><p>Madison makes a sound approaching a laugh, opens his eyes to look Hamilton over.</p><p>“And what about you? Something ridiculous you miss?”</p><p>Not many ridiculous things, no. Mostly things that he’s not yet drunk enough to think about.   </p><p>“I had a really nice pair of socks,” Hamilton says after a pause. He takes another long drink. “They had <em> fuck off </em>printed on them. And when I was in class and someone pissed me off, I used to cuff my jeans so they could see them.”</p><p>Hamilton almost smiles as he thinks of Samuel Seabury’s scandalized look across the classroom—but the memory is soured fast, drives him to drink again.</p><p>“Yes, that sounds in-character,” Madison says, bringing him back with a quiet laugh.</p><p>Madison sways a little, almost falls out of the chair again, has to lean forward and brace his chin in his hands to keep from tipping over. He looks at Hamilton an inch too far left, thinking, the good humor sliding slowly off his face. The effort is almost comically intense, clearly a strain through the vodka clouding his mind.</p><p>“Hamilton,” Madison says in a voice that betrays the direction he’s going.</p><p>“No,” Hamilton interrupts him. “I ate today. I slept a couple hours. I’m getting drunk. Things are as fine as they get, and I don’t want to think about whatever you’re about to say.”</p><p>Madison considers that, then at last curls his fingers back around the bottle.</p><p>“I’ll drink to that.”</p><p>“I think you’ve had enough to drink,” Hamilton halfheartedly protests.</p><p>“And when I wake up tomorrow…” He has to try several times before he successfully gets out <em> tomorrow. </em> “…hungover halfway to Texas, I permit you to tell me <em> I told you so.” </em></p><p>Hamilton imagines telling a hungover Madison <em> I told you so </em>would go over about as well as fucking up his meditation, but it doesn’t matter—drunk Madison swipes the bottle anyways, drinks. Hamilton takes it back eventually, polishes off the last couple shots sloshing around in the bottom.</p><p>“Cheers,” Madison drunkenly says. He looks at Hamilton with unfocused eyes, head tilting to the side. He smiles a second later—not like his usual reticent, close-lipped smiles, but something full that shows off his teeth, unreserved. “Ah, did I—did I ever tell you about the time Lafayette gave John Adams a pet crocodile for his birthday?”</p><p>Madison talks.</p><p>It’s nothing Hamilton’s interested in, nothing he really cares about—opera and musical theory and wine tasting and the subtle differences between slate grey and charcoal, half of which is completely incomprehensible through Madison’s slurring—but Hamilton’s pleasantly buzzed before long. Then probably drunk. And then a few sips away from hammered. So it’s a perfect diversion, and if he squints, he can almost pretend he’s in his apartment in New York, flanked by Hercules and Laurens as they pound back beers.</p><p>At some point they migrate to the couch in the living room, and Hamilton sits and listens and lets Madison talk and talk and talk until he trails off mid-sentence, stilling with a soft puff of air. His breathing evens out. Madison melts sideways, head dropping onto Hamilton’s shoulder, body slanting limply against his.</p><p>Hamilton blinks in the dark, his shoulders stiffening.</p><p>He has half the mind to untangle himself, get up—but if he moves, he’ll wake up Madison. And Madison’s already said he hasn’t been able to sleep. And Hamilton wants to sleep too. Wants to sleep so fucking badly. Knows what it's like to not be able to rest. He’s so fucking tired all the time, always wishing he could get more than a scant handful of hours before the nightmares wake him up, leave him gasping and shaken and too frightened to try again.</p><p>Madison is quiet, peaceful, still beside him. Hamilton wishes he could have that. Doesn’t want to take it from someone else. And not from Madison.</p><p>Hamilton sinks back into the couch and closes his eyes. He ignores the ache that blossoms in his neck after half an hour, finally drifts off the rhythm of Madison’s chest rising and falling beside him.</p><p>It’s not good sleep, but it never is. Hamilton only manages a few handfuls of minutes at a time. Madison wakes him up once—or he wakes Madison. He isn’t sure. Either way, they're awake. Madison blinks at him in the dark, swaying slightly, still drunk.</p><p>“Hamilton,” he murmurs, the name falling like honey past his lips.</p><p>“Yeah?"</p><p>Madison’s eyes fall shut again as he lists back into Hamilton’s side. The words slur drunkenly out of his mouth, almost incomprehensible, barely out of his mouth before he’s asleep again.</p><p>“It’s selfish of me, but I’m glad you’re here.”</p><p>Hamilton slips asleep another few minutes; blinks awake to find Jefferson nestled in a bundle of blankets on the floor, his shotgun laid six inches to the side of them.</p><p>Eventually, the room fades from black to grey to pink, warm hues signaling sunrise. Hamilton’s sobered up enough to fully appreciate just how badly his neck hurts, how his arm’s fallen asleep. He can see Jefferson’s face more clearly in the budding daylight, fully makes out the dark circles written in under his eyes.</p><p>They’ve all been losing sleep.</p><p>Madison stirs after another hour, shifts, presses his face into Hamilton’s shoulder with a quiet, pained groan to escape the light—then stiffens, freezing up.</p><p>Hamilton is still, forces himself to breathe quietly, steadily, to imitate sleep.</p><p>Madison carefully pulls away. There’s silence, stillness for a second where he’s doing something Hamilton can’t see—and then Madison quietly stands, his footsteps padding away. Hamilton keeps pretending sleep, stays still even as a blanket drapes over him a few moments later.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton catches sight of himself in a bathroom mirror that morning.</p><p>The scar on his neck is just beginning to lighten from crimson-red to muted shades of pink, indented slivers of silver. The shape is unmistakable, though.</p><p>
  <em> Bitten. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Should’ve died. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Didn’t. </em>
</p><p>It has to be for something.</p><p>Hamilton needs his immunity to mean something. He needs to make sense of all the misery. He can’t have the legacy he wanted, but he can’t let his life mean nothing.</p><p>(Even if he hasn’t earned this. Hasn’t done anything at all to deserve still being alive.)</p><p>England isn’t an option—not right now. But there’s got to be somewhere else in the country, or, fuck, even in some other country. France? Spain? Portugal? If there’s somewhere he can go, he’ll do it.</p><p>Hamilton thinks of Madison, pleading with Hamilton to stay in Boston, of Jefferson’s words to Adams over a cigarette, of the conversation Hamilton wasn’t supposed to hear.</p><p>It’s been just shy of six months, but sometimes he feels like he’s spent his whole life with the two of them, like his life before knowing them may as well not exist at all. It’s a stupid thing, he thinks, because even if they play the leading roles in his life, he’s not much more than a footnote in theirs.</p><p>A footnote that’s going to be forgotten.</p><p>Hamilton was going to leave them; he didn’t. Hamilton was going to England—until he wasn’t. Hamilton would’ve stayed in Boston, and then he couldn’t. Now, he’s—what? What is he? Stuck in some state of flux, knowing that he’s going to go at some point, but never knowing when, never knowing where? He’s just supposed to wait on news from the Sons, know that he can’t have anything for long, know that every moment free he has is numbered? Knowing that the rest of the country will hand his head over on a platter to a king that doesn’t care about any of them? That damned them by pulling out most of their troops? That sits safe and untouched in his palace, insane?</p><p>(Madison and Jefferson, he wants to let himself—)</p><p>He’s angry and tired and—fuck.</p><p>The scar on his neck makes him just as alone as he ever was.</p><p>Hamilton turns away from the mirror and pulls up his hair into a sloppy bun without looking.</p><p>He ignores the loose strands of hair that fall into his face.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Jefferson pulls to a stop outside an old rest station. It’s getting dark out, and it’s an empty stretch of road, so it’s better than pulling over at the side of the road, at least.</p><p>Hamilton glances at the driver’s seat and realizes that he misses driving. He hasn’t driven for months now, not since—fuck, he hasn’t driven the Escalade since before he was bitten. After that, it just seemed like a wasted pastime; he hadn’t seen the point, figured he’d be in England before long.</p><p>He doesn’t know if driving's worth it now either.</p><p>“I need to change those bandages,” Madison tells Jefferson as they step out of the car.</p><p>Jefferson’s hand rises impulsively to his ear, cradling the dressings. His expression goes through half a dozen emotions in the span of a second, finally settles on bitterness.</p><p>“Yeah, I’ll pass, thanks.”</p><p>Jefferson’s weirdly sensitive about the injury, not like Hamilton, who accrues a new scar every other week with little more than a grimace and a halfhearted shrug. In another few years, Hamilton will probably have more scars than untouched skin. In places, he already looks like he’s been through a meat grinder. Still, the only scar that bothers him is the one on his neck—and that's not for aesthetic reasons.</p><p>Jefferson, though—well, Hamilton supposes it follows.</p><p>Jefferson has always cared about appearances, always primped and preened, held onto his designer clothes and Louboutins and Rolex like nothing’s changed. The fact that he’s missing part of an ear—however cosmetic the issue—must break the illusion of normality. It's probably all Jefferson can see when he looks in the mirror, probably reminds him of what the world is now, of what it isn't.</p><p>“If you want, I can do it,” Hamilton suggests, knowing what words to choose to get Jefferson to break down, to let Madison help. “Unless you’d like to lose the rest of the ear ‘cause of infection. Gangrene's not pretty, you know.”</p><p>Jefferson looks at him with a look that could melt steel, then turns back to Madison.</p><p>“Fine,” he tells Madison; after almost six months, Hamilton knows just how to get under his skin.</p><p>Madison fetches their first-aid kit. Hamilton halfheartedly stands guard as Jefferson leaps to a sit atop the hood. Hamilton halfheartedly stands guard, disinterestedly taking the clip out of his pistol, then sliding it back. That’s what passes for entertainment these days, he dryly supposes.</p><p>Madison and Jefferson switch to French a few sentences into their conversation; Hamilton, as always, feigns ignorance, pretends he doesn’t know what they’re saying.</p><p>“Well?” Jefferson asks in English as Madison examines the wound. His voice is light, airy, but there’s a strained undercurrent, so well-hidden that Hamilton is surprised he even catches at all. “What’s the verdict? Am I still gonna be pretty?”</p><p>Madison chuckles.</p><p>“It’s what on the inside that counts,” he says, earning himself a scandalized look. Madison erases it with a kiss to the side of Jefferson’s mouth, smiling in the way he saves only for Jefferson, indulgent and so warm it makes Hamilton’s heart ache. <em>“Bien sûr, mon amour. </em>” He arches his brows, hums amusedly. “Some men even find scars attractive.”</p><p>“Yeah, some do, but you seem like one of the ones that would say scars result from stupidity,” Hamilton cuts in, vaguely irritated for reasons he can’t place—for being so out in the open, he decides.</p><p>“You must be in pretty bad shape under those clothes, huh?” Jefferson fires back.</p><p>“Why don’t you find out?” Hamilton scoffs back, unthinking that it might not be the most diplomatic of responses, even more so in front of Jefferson’s fucking boyfriend—but Madison just rolls his eyes.</p><p>“You’re both incorrigible,” he tells them before Jefferson can get in a reply, continue their bickering.</p><p><em>“Incorrigible? </em>Oh, Jemmy, you know how much I love it when you use five syllable words,” Jefferson purrs, earning himself a second eye roll—this one, fonder.</p><p>Hamilton decides it’s a good time to give them space. He hauls his compound bow over his shoulder, takes one of the bayoneted rifles, ignores the look they share when he bids them adieu for a couple hours, then heads out. It’s almost dark out, but the moon is full and low in the sky overhead, and Hamilton’s picked up a nice shoulder-mounted flashlight, can see well enough to wander.</p><p>The vending machines in the rest stop are smashed-out, already emptied, unfortunately. Hamilton wanders into the building—bathrooms, a couple fast food counters, a gift shop that slaps <em> Maryland </em> across everything that you can slap Maryland onto—and a few things that you probably shouldn’t. Hamilton pokes around the gift shop anyways. Nothing edible is left, unfortunately, but he at least finds a few <em> Maryland </em>scented candles—fuck if he knows what that means. Tobacco and manure?</p><p>The real treasure comes when he lifts up a fallen display.</p><p>“Oh my god,” he murmurs, picking them up.</p><p>It’s the ugliest thing he’s ever seen—like something out of a six-year-old’s fairy-princess daydream: vivid magenta, purple-lensed, Elton-John, white star-spangled sunglasses.</p><p>An hour later, Hamilton returns to the car, raps on the tinted window until Jefferson appears, rolls it down.</p><p>“I got you a gift,” he wryly tells Jefferson, shit-eating as he hands over the sunglasses.</p><p>Jefferson blinks down at them. Hamilton almost anticipates the <em> what the fuck are these </em>on the brink of coming out of his mouth—only it never does. Jefferson finally laughs, genuinely delighted. The underlying anger that’s been so prominent in his face lately melts away, if only for a moment.</p><p>“These are the best fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” he exclaims, sliding them on.</p><p>Hamilton’s mouth drops open, eyes narrowing in incredulity.</p><p>“Madison!” Jefferson calls, turning around in the car. “Look what Hamilton found. Fuck, and I was just thinking about how I needed to find a pair.”</p><p> Hamilton glances through the window, spots Madison’s blank face as he looks Jefferson over.</p><p>“Ah.” Madison blinks, at a rare loss for words. “Those are certainly… something.”</p><p>The second Jefferson looks away, still raving, still thrilled, Madison meets Hamilton’s gaze, his eyes flat with displeasure. For once, Hamilton feels like it’s completely warranted.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Boston catches up.</p><p>Their fifth morning out of the city, Madison’s coughing every few minutes into a handkerchief. By the evening, he’s come down with such a fever that he can hardly walk without an arm slung around Jefferson’s shoulder. He deteriorates fast, falling viciously sick, just like he predicted. Hamilton has no idea what he's come down with; it’s somehow a head-cold and a respiratory illness and a stomach flu all at once, enough to unravel anyone.</p><p>Jefferson spends the next few days pacing anxiously without pause, never sleeping, trying to coax Madison into eating, rushing into the bedroom at the slightest cough or moan. The circles under his eyes grow darker by the day.</p><p>Jefferson takes care of Madison; it falls to Hamilton to take care of everything else. Hamilton doesn’t know how to cook anything that can’t be made in a microwave, but he can at least heat up a can of soup. When they run out of tea bags, he goes out to scavenge, doesn’t come back until he finds more. Making matters worse, the area they’re in isn’t really safe. If it was ever evacuated at all, it was a sloppy, hasty affair. Lots of infected linger behind.</p><p>The three of them are as dead quiet as they can be. Hamilton moves all the furniture in the house in front of the entrances, strategically blocks all exits except a couple second-floor windows, but he's increasingly worried that Madison's not even in stable enough condition to make an escape if it comes down to it.</p><p>Hamilton’s making tea when Jefferson finds him the fourth day they’re hunkered down.</p><p>“Madison’s not getting better,” he tells Hamilton, leaning over to rummage through the pack of food on the counter. “Stay with him. I’m gonna go out and see if I can’t scrap up some medicine. Actual medicine—not Aspirin.”</p><p>“What?” Hamilton asks, his face twisting. “Alone?”</p><p>“Uh, do you see the fuckin’ Spice Girls coming with me?”</p><p>“I’m serious, Jefferson. This place isn’t quiet.”</p><p>“Yeah, and I made it well over a year before you ever showed up,” Jefferson tells him, shaking his head. “You made it that almost as long without anyone. No one’s stayed alive this long unless they can wipe their ass themselves—and I fucking can." He looks up, eyes piercing. "Not that I need your vote of confidence.”</p><p>Jefferson shrugs off his button-up, replaces it with a much dirtier looking t-shirt. His slacks come off too—apparently, he’s either oblivious to the fact that Hamilton is right there<em>, </em>or he just doesn’t give a shit. Since it’s Jefferson, Hamilton has to believe the latter. On goes a pair of battered sweatpants. He sweeps his hair back, pulls it away with a hair tie that Hamilton is certain is his. The bizarreness throws Hamilton off, distracts him.</p><p>“What're you doing?” </p><p>“Being conscious that if anything out there is alive, it wants to send my ass packing to England.”</p><p>Hamilton shifts on his feet, sizing the man up. Jefferson's shoulders are stone-stiff, jaw ticking every few seconds, and there's an almost-manic quality in the way he moves.</p><p>Jefferson’s fraying at the edges—they all are—but Madison’s out of commission, and Hamilton isn’t him, doesn't know how to calm Jefferson down with nothing more than a look. He’s not sure what to do.</p><p>“I’ll, uh, go check on Madison,” he says; words that Jefferson doesn't even acknowledge.</p><p>Madison is awake when Hamilton walks in, overtaken by a coughing fit that doesn’t subside for half a minute. Hamilton isn’t sure—Madison conceals it too quickly—but he thinks he sees a flash of red staining the handkerchief when Madison pulls it away.</p><p>“Jefferson’s going out to go look for medicine,” Madison guesses, his voice cut rawer than broken glass by the coughing. “I assume he told you to stay with me?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Well, you have my permission to ignore him,” Madison tells him. In another situation, Hamilton would probably savor those words more—hold them over Jefferson’s head for days. “I’m still conscious. I have a Colt Python and common sense—neither of which Jefferson has when I’m unwell. If i get into trouble, I'll handle it.”</p><p>“You think he’ll get into trouble?</p><p>“Maybe.” Madison’s cut off by another coughing fit—this time Hamilton pays more attention, indubitably catches the sight of blood in the tissue. Madison knows he’s seen it this time, refuses to make eye contact. “If he does, I’d be significantly compromised if I went to look for him. Your skills will be put to much better use with him than if you stay tending to me.”</p><p>Hamilton shifts. He’s not sure how he feels about leaving Madison alone like this, but the house’s as well-barricaded as it can be, and Madison’s conscious, well enough to hold a conversation—but his condition is still deteriorating. That makes Jefferson's objective feel that much more necessary, but makes it that much harder to justify leaving Madison on his own.</p><p>(Hamilton thinks of Madison taking care of him for those two weeks, the two weeks he doesn’t remember, the weeks that must’ve been a nightmare for them both).</p><p>“Hamilton,” Madison says, voice a note shy of pleading.</p><p>Hamilton wets his lips.</p><p>“Alright. I’ll go with him.” He almost reaches forward, lays a hand—Hamilton steps back, hands locked firmly at his sides. He clears his throat, then forces a smile, gets out, “Be here when we get back.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t get far,” Madison retorts, familiar irritability seeping into his words. Somehow, it's a comfort.</p><p>Hamilton emerges from the bedroom, finds Jefferson downstairs still packing.</p><p>“He told you to come with me,” Jefferson deduces, not even looking up.</p><p>Sometimes Hamilton wonders how it’s possible for two people to know each other so well.</p><p>“This isn’t the first time I’ve gone out on my own for a few days. It won’t be the last,” Jefferson protests—but there’s no real heat to his words.</p><p>“It’ll be the first time since the King put a bounty on your head. Madison told me to go with you. I’m a better shot than I am a nurse. I’m going.”</p><p>Jefferson heaves a sigh, considers Hamilton a long moment.</p><p>“Hamilton, I haven’t known you half my life. You can’t read my mind like Madison. If we’re out there alone together, you have to trust me. You don’t have to fucking like me—but if I tell you to do something, you have to do it. No questions, no backtalk, no objections—nothing. Just do it, and trust that I’ve got a plan. I’m in charge. If you can agree to that, then <em> fine</em>. You can come with me.”</p><p>Jefferson’s terms make Hamilton want to stay with Madison out of mere principle, but a seriousness reveals itself on Jefferson’s face the longer he looks. Jefferson’s not making some kind of power play, not trying to shut him up—he’s serious. Of course he is; if there’s anything Jefferson’s never messed with, it’s Madison’s well-being. And Jefferson’s terms aren't coming from nowhere.</p><p>Hamilton’s seen Jefferson and Madison coordinate an entire sneak attack with nothing more than their hands. He’s watched them hold an entire conversation with nothing but their eyes. Hamilton can’t hold a candle next to that. He can hold a gun, fight, but he can’t work with Jefferson that well. If that’s what Jefferson’s used to, then—well. Hamilton’s not even in the ballpark.</p><p>“Look,” Hamilton replies. “I’ll agree, alright? But not unconditionally. If I think something’s wrong, you have to listen to me. If I say we’ve got to go or run, it’s because I’m sure something’s wrong. If you don’t see something that I do, I’m not gonna die because you’re too fucking stubborn to listen to me.”</p><p>Jefferson looks equally resistant to Hamilton’s terms, but he too finally relents.</p><p>“Fine. Get your shit together. Pack for three days—shouldn't be that long, but better to be ready. I’m going to go talk to Madison.”</p><p>Hamilton packs. Fragments of French slip down the stairs.</p><p>“<em> Jemmy… back tonight? … soon.” </em></p><p>
  <em> “… safe. Hamilton… after… be fine…” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Don’t forget… tea in the cabinet…” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “… love you, Jemmy.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Despite myself… love you too.” </em>
</p><p>Hamilton tries to ignore them, ignores the way his stomach twists against his ribs.</p><p>He focuses on packing. A few cans of food, a bottle of water—check. Basic-first-aid supplies—check. Knife, spare ammo, compound bow, quiver, arrows—check. He straightens up finished just as Jefferson glides down the stairs, looking miserable.</p><p>“Alright,” Jefferson tells him. He looks over his shoulder up at Madison's room—then looks away, grim determination in his expression. “Let’s go.”</p><p>            </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It occurs to Hamilton that it’s the first time in almost six months that he’s ever really been alone with Jefferson. Sure, he’s been alone in a room with him before, even in a building—but Madison’s always only ever been a yell away, ready to act as the buffer between them if their bickering starts to get too sharp, if anger starts to boil over. It’s never been just the two of them before.</p><p>If Jefferson is aware of it too, he doesn’t say as much. He’s either too single-mindedly focused or too exhausted to start a conversation. He doesn't even take a stab at Hamilton when Hamilton nearly goes face-first into the dirt after an unfortunate encounter with an uneven patch of pavement. Hamilton is made distinctly uneasy by the silence.</p><p>“Where are we going?” Hamilton asks finally. “And why didn’t we take the Escalade?”</p><p>“If Madison needs to make a break for it, I don’t want him on foot.” Jefferson hikes his backpack over his shoulder. “As for where we're going, we passed an old emergency fed camp set up ten miles up the road coming in. Might be overrun—might be abandoned. If we’re lucky, it won’t be picked completely clean.”</p><p>Hamilton does the math in his head, figures it’s maybe three hours to get there on foot, an hour to search the place if they’re quick—and lucky—and three hours to get back. There’s not much of a margin for rest if they’re going to make it back before dark. And Hamilton really, really doesn’t want to be stuck in the dark outside in the middle of winter this far north. He's already fucking freezing, and it's as warm as it's going to get all day.</p><p>They walk; the silence forces Hamilton to think.</p><p>“I’m sorry.”</p><p>Hamilton’s not even sure which of the dozens and dozens of things he’s apologizing for.</p><p>“Why?” Jefferson asks, voice flat.</p><p>“You wouldn’t have been in Boston if it weren’t for me.”</p><p>“And Madison would be dead if it weren’t for you.” A beat of silence follows; Jefferson looks away. “I never thanked you for that.”</p><p>“You don’t—”</p><p>“No, I do. It’s not the same, but—if something happened to him, I would be—fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’d do.” Jefferson’s face breaks out into something raw. “I don’t know.”</p><p>Hamilton sees himself escaping Charleston, walking away, dazed, trancelike. Aimless.</p><p>“You’d keep living,” Hamilton answers, tongue thick. “Survive. That’s what he’d want you to do.”</p><p>Jefferson’s laugh isn’t quite a laugh, but Hamilton doesn’t know what else to call it.</p><p>“Not sure how much of a point there’d be.”</p><p>Hamilton’s throat tightens. Red spills into the corners of his vision.</p><p>Red like the sheets at the Schuyler’s house, like Laurens’ sleeve, like the scar on his throat—</p><p>“I don’t know. Maybe you’d find out you’re immune too, bring some meaning to your pointless fucking life,” Hamilton spits, storming a few steps ahead.</p><p>Jefferson makes a sound that's half-surprised, half-horror sucked in through his teeth as realization dawns—maybe even guilt. He speeds up to fall back into line after Hamilton a few steps, mouth opening and closing a few times before he seems to find the words he wants.</p><p>“Fuck, look, I’m not saying—”</p><p>“You did.”</p><p>“It’s—fuck. I’ve been in love with Madison for almost half my life. I’m—look, I couldn’t get over that in a day. And I’m not saying it’s the same, but look—I got over Madison once. It wouldn’t be easy, and I’d be fucking miserable for fuck knows how long—but I could do it again. I could find something else.”</p><p>“What do you mean you’ve gotten over him once?” Hamilton snaps, asking even though he knows the answer—he asks because he knows the question will hurt Jefferson, asks because <em>he’s</em> hurt, aching, lashing out like an injured animal backed into a corner.</p><p>Jefferson recoils, taken aback. Old hurt surfaces on his face, still raw, still so strong that it knocks Hamilton back too, makes him regret having said anything at all.</p><p>“He...” Jefferson doesn’t want to answer; that much is obvious. But he’s fucked up, knows he’s fucked up, so he goes on, voice strained. “He dumped me. A long time ago. In college.”</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t want to continue the thread of conversation, but Jefferson continues it anyways, the words spilling out of his mouth like he's a faucet with a broken handle.</p><p>“He dumped me after three years over a phone call and didn’t speak to me for four fucking years,” he goes on, anger rising in his voice as a respite from the hurt. “And he never fucking told me why.”</p><p>Unresolved anger, Hamilton realizes—but Jefferson smooths it over, compartmentalizing, tucking his anger neatly away wherever it is that he keeps it. He shrugs, sighs.</p><p>“Look—I’m not gonna tell you it’s the same thing. But I moved on. I did other stuff. I found other people. Started my career.”</p><p>“You went back to him,” Hamilton points out, the <em> I can’t </em>bitter on his tongue.</p><p><em>“He</em> came back to <em>me,”</em> Jefferson replies, a fraction of the anger from earlier bubbling back through his words—then slipping back under. “And like I said—not the same thing. But—if I had to, I would find a way to move on. I don’t know how. But I would. My life wouldn’t have to be over.”</p><p>Hamilton glances aside, studies Jefferson’s uncharacteristic sincerity, still unwilling to budge. Jefferson is trying—in his floundering, insensitive way—to buoy Hamilton up, convince him that, <em> oh, what I said about your life being meaningless because the love of your life’s dead isn’t true, you could still be happy someday— </em>and Hamilton doesn’t want to hear it. He’s immune; that’s got to be enough.</p><p>There’s nothing else for him.</p><p>“I didn’t mean it,” Jefferson says. Hamilton’s mouth ticks. “I wasn’t thinking.”</p><p>Hamilton looks away.</p><p>”I was being a dramatic bitch,” Jefferson tries.</p><p>Hamilton slows mid-stride. He doesn’t know how much of that is actually Jefferson, how much of it is just a well-calculated move on his behalf to say what Hamilton wants to hear—but it doesn’t matter. It's good enough. Hamilton wants to leave this conversation behind, go back to thinking about anything else.</p><p>“What else is new?” he asks, voice still sour, but inflected with just enough forgiveness for Jefferson’s shoulders to loosen a little.</p><p>It’s a few miles before they start to talk again, but their conversation is almost amicable by the time the camp comes into sight. The camp’s really just a repurposed private airfield, white tents and emergency response trailers, surrounded by a barbed wire topped chain link fence. A few infected mill within sight on the side of the fence; they skirt around the sides until they find a clear spot.</p><p>The two of them approach cautiously, weapons half-raised and ready to fire.</p><p>“How many do you think are in there?” Hamilton asks as Jefferson sizes up the barbed wire.</p><p>“Well, it’s definitely abandoned,” Jefferson says. “Could’ve gotten overrun, but the infected I saw back there weren’t dressed like they were government. My guess’s that they came in after the place got abandoned. There's probably a section of fence knocked down somewhere. Tree fell or something.” He turns to Hamilton. “Couple of places that might be easier to climb over, but not without us getting seen. You think you can get over without shredding yourself?”</p><p>Hamilton glances at the fence looming over their heads, the three rows of barbed wire at the top. Either of them getting over without contracting tetanus is a big fucking maybe. Both of them getting over would be a miracle.</p><p>“Hold on,” he tells Jefferson, doubling back to an abandoned car. He tries its door, smashes the window with an elbow and unlocks it when they don’t open. He returns to Jefferson with a car door mat and a smug smile. “Here. Barbs can’t puncture through the material.”</p><p>Jefferson snorts, but there's distinctly impressed gleam in his eyes.</p><p>“That the Internet talking or experience?”</p><p>“Experience!” he scoffs. “I’ve been urban exploring.”</p><p>“Oh, is that the Millennial way of saying breaking and entering to go smoke pot?”</p><p>“That’s not—”</p><p>Jefferson tips his head to the side, arching a single brow.</p><p>Hamilton turns away and starts climbing the fence, tossing the mat over the barbs. He gets over seamlessly, drops to the ground. Jefferson follows, lands with a <em> whoosh</em>, and the two of them creep further into the airfield.</p><p>The sounds of infected draw nearer, sighs and shrieks and pained moans that sound so unnervingly human that Hamilton has to push old <em> what if they’re still in there </em>thoughts out of his mind.</p><p>Jefferson signals him to take cover behind an abandoned trailer. They rush forward low to the ground, press their backs to the side, pop their heads around its corners. The main body of the camp is just ahead; Hamilton counts nine infected in the airstrip in front of them, but for every infected he sees, there’s inevitably always one, two, maybe three lurking just out of sight.</p><p>Jefferson’s tongue clicks quietly against his teeth as he thinks. Finally, he motions to Hamilton’s bow, points to an infected with its back to them huddled against the side of a car fifteen yards away.</p><p>“Can you take that one out?” Jefferson murmurs, bending over to grab ahold of a hefty rock.</p><p>Hamilton’s jaw works as he judges the distance, judges his skill. He turns to Jefferson with a nod, creeps a little closer, slides halfway out from behind a tree. He swipes an arrow, nocks it, aims—shoots. His arrow goes a little short, a little too far left, but cuts through the side of the infected’s throat. It collapses to the ground with shrieks that decay into wet gurgles, and, finally, silence.</p><p>Jefferson eyes the rest of the infected, makes sure none are paying attention, then signals them forward. Crouched low, they dash forward, slide up behind the car. Jefferson heaves up the rock he grabbed a minute earlier, motions for Hamilton to be ready, then pops up, throws the stone forward. It crashes through the windshield of a truck fifty feet away with a deafening crunch-clink of shattering glass.</p><p>Infected screech, heads turning to the sound. Some shamble forward on injured legs; others run with nearly all the speed and grace of a healthy human. Jefferson peers over the hood of the car, waits until there’s a sizable crowd around the car—<em>twenty </em> - <em> something </em>—then reaches into his pocket. What comes out is familiar in size and shape, and—<em>sh</em><em>it.</em></p><p>“Is that a grenade?” Hamilton hisses.</p><p>“No—it’s a fucking Bible,” Jefferson shoots back without so much as glancing his direction. “Yes, it’s a fucking grenade. We either shoot them or blow our way through, and no way we get through that many without risking getting swarmed. Can’t sneak around that many either.”</p><p>“Have you ever even used a grenade?”</p><p>“I saw the Sons of Anarchy use them. I have good aim. Good enough for me.”</p><p>“Or good enough to get us blown the fuck up!”</p><p>Jefferson ignores him and pulls the pin—then throws.</p><p>There’s a split-second where Hamilton’s terrified it’s going to blow up mid-air, kill them both, leave Madison to find what’s left of their bodies—but instead, the grenade arcs perfectly through the air, strikes the side of the car swarmed by infected. It hits the ground with a metallic clink. The nearest infected looks down at it with a howl, curious.</p><p>Hamilton drags Jefferson down. Half a second later, the explosion rocks the ground beneath them. It’s deafening, bright white. Hamilton’s almost sure he’s died—but then the world returns. A detached arm lands a dozen feet in front of them, bloody, its fingers still twitching.</p><p>“Oh,” Jefferson says, eyes wide as he stares. His voice rings in Hamilton's ears, almost inaudible. “That’s awful nice, huh?” He turns to Hamilton, mouth curling into a wry smile. “So, you think it got ‘em?”</p><p>“I would break your fucking nose if I got the chance,” Hamilton swears.</p><p>Jefferson snorts, shifts to a crouch to peer over the hood. There’s a smoking crater, twisted metal, and a fine mist of red mixed with chunks of things Hamilton doesn’t want to think about where the grenade went off—no infected. A couple more infected shamble screaming out from tents and behind vans, drawn by the noise, but Jefferson lifts his handgun, takes them out with a few well-placed shots.</p><p>“Alright,” he says, turning to Hamilton. “Let’s make this fast. Might have some infected coming through from the sound. The fences should keep them out—but watch your back.”</p><p>It’s an unnecessary reminder, but Hamilton chooses not to give him shit for it—this time. They edge around the car, still low to the ground, eyes peeled. Jefferson directs them into the first white tent. Bodies fill half the cots, rendered close to skeletal by rot. Fungus grows out of some of the corpses, burying bodies beneath clots of sickly colored plates. Hamilton averts his eyes, joins Jefferson in ransacking boxes, first-aid kits, abandoned bags—all empty.</p><p>“What am I even looking for?” Hamilton asks as they search.</p><p>“Amoxicillin. Biaxin. Zithromax. Anything labeled antibiotic,” Jefferson answers, shuffling through drawers. “Fuck—it’s picked pretty damn clear.” He slams a drawer shut, shakes his head, his mouth thinning into a tightly drawn line. “<em>Shit</em>. Maybe took it all with them if they evacuated."</p><p>“We’ve barely started looking,” Hamilton tries to reassure him. “C’mon."</p><p>But the next places they scavange are similarly picked clean; the place must’ve in fact been evacuated, not overrun. Jefferson’s frustration mounts as they search through the place, clear out straggling infected, and search.</p><p>Their search is coming to a close when they round a corner, come across an upside-down, half-crunched ambulance. A similarly crunched military truck sits abandoned a few hundred feet away, its hood crumpled up like a stomped can of Coke. Jefferson looks between the two, then heads towards the ambulance with a thoughtful <em> huh. </em></p><p>“Looks like someone didn’t use a turn signal,” Hamilton dryly remarks as Jefferson drops to a crouch beside the ambulance, trying the doors—locked.</p><p>“You’ve never used a turn signal.”</p><p>“Yeah, because the roads are fucking abandoned. Who am I signaling to, exactly? God?”</p><p>Jefferson rounds the ambulance and eyes driver’s side window. The glass is busted out; the frame is warped, leaving an almost impossibly small space behind—but there’s no body in the driver’s side, which is a promising sign.</p><p>“You think you can squeeze through there?” Jefferson asks, eyeing the broken window suspiciously. “I don’t know if I can get through.”</p><p>Jefferson’s got a point. He probably couldn’t even get his fucking shoulders through. Hamilton’s got a better chance, but there’s no guarantee he’ll make it. He wants to argue—the last thing he wants to do is climb into an ambulance; he hates ambulances, hates hospitals—but Madison’s ashen face flashes in his mind. In Hamilton's memory, Madison's eyes are yellowed with fever.</p><p>“I can try,” Hamilton says, sliding off his backpack.</p><p>Hamilton drops to the ground, eyes the window and strategizes. Feet-first, he starts to shimmy through. There’s a body with an unnaturally twisted neck in the passenger’s seat—but it’s still as he eases in. Jefferson’s concerned face vanishes above him as he slides into the compartment. There’s a body still strapped into the passenger seat, but Hamilton ignores it, ignores the smell, kicks out the window dividing the front two seats from the passenger’s compartment.</p><p>Hamilton starts to drag himself through, forces himself to ignore the toppled-over gurney, the body on the floor—<em>NOTABODYNOTABODYNOTABODY— </em>Hamilton yells, throws himself backwards to get away as yellowed jaws roar to life, lock greasy fingers around his angle. He’s too close to shoot, doesn’t have the angle to pull his knife—he kicks viciously with his free leg, connects hard with the infected’s jaw until it yelps in pain, shrinks back. Hamilton doubles down, punts it hard in the face until it reels back, then scrambles onto his knees, knife out, knife through eye—and the infected slumps over, dead.</p><p>“Hamilton?” Jefferson shouts, and only now the blood in Hamilton's ears is quiet enough to hear his voice.</p><p>“I’m fine!” Hamilton calls back after a ragged inhale. “Just one of—one of those mother<em>fuckers.” </em></p><p>“Jesus, you scared the living shit out of me. <em>Please </em>be careful. For my fucking sake, if not yours.”</p><p>Hamilton flips him off even though Jefferson can’t see, then pries his knife out of the infected’s eye, cleans the blade on its clothes before tucking it back away. The cab is blessedly free of any other bodies, living or dead, and Hamilton breathes a sigh of relief. It’s near pitch-black, so he fishes out a flashlight, starts to search.</p><p>There’s lots of monitors—all useless to them. Hamilton ignores the equipment too, peels open a first-aid kit—empty. He rises to a crouch, moves over to a duffel bag discarded on the floor, opens it.</p><p>It’s a fucking jackpot—but not what he’s looking for. He shuffles through the trauma kit, mentally logging its contents: hemostatic bandages, splints, tourniquets, equipment—dozens of other things, but no antibiotics. Hamilton scrubs a frustrated hand over his face, leaves the bag for the moment to search the rest of the ambulance. He moves to the cabinets lining the sides of the ambulances and tugs on the doors—locked.</p><p>“Fuck,” Hamilton mutters, looking around before returning to the passenger’s seat.</p><p>He eyes the body a moment, distrustful. More out of paranoia than any logic, he takes his knife to the body’s neck. The head slumps forward—still lifeless as it ever was, but it yanks a yelp out of him anyways.</p><p>“Hamilton?” </p><p>“Nothing,” he gets out, too fast and too defensive.</p><p>Hamilton ignores the low, warm laugh Jefferson directs his way, pats down the body, searches pockets until his fingers meet metal. He comes up with a ring of keys.</p><p>“Fuck yes,” he mutters, crawling back to the cabinet.</p><p>Halfway through the ring, Jefferson’s shotgun cracks out.</p><p>“Trouble?” Hamilton calls, already halfway to the exit.</p><p>“Nothing I can’t handle!” Another gunshot, a shriek, then silence. “All clear.”</p><p>Hamilton hesitates, then returns—gets the key, opens, shuffles through rows of bandages. He pushes some aside, then stops short.</p><p>“Hey,” he calls out. “Amoxicillin’s good?”</p><p>“Yes! Did you find some? God, please tell me you found some.”</p><p>“Yeah, that and a fucking jackpot of other shit,” Hamilton replies, giddy.</p><p>He rolls bottles around in his hands, reading labels. Half of it’s probably useless to them, and he doesn’t even recognize half the names, but, fuck, he likes the look of the bottle labelled <em> morphine. </em>Hamilton shoves everything into a nearby pack, grabs the duffel bag, double-checks one last time, then crawls his way back out.</p><p>“What’s this?” Jefferson asks as he pulls the duffel bag out so Hamilton can squeeze through.</p><p>“Trauma shit for the next time you get your ass shot.”</p><p>“That <em> I </em>get shot?” Jefferson scoffs, but he’s all smiles, shoulders drooped loose in relief, his delight contagious. “What makes you think it won’t be you next time?”</p><p>“You’re the biggest target,” Hamilton tells him with a provoking grin.</p><p> Jefferson slings the duffel bag over his shoulder, hands Hamilton his backpack, lets him keep the medicine bag. They glance around as the snarls of infected rise from somewhere in the distance.</p><p>“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Jefferson says, already on the move. “If we hoof it, we can make it back before dark.”</p><p>The setback to that resolution reveals itself as they round a tent, come back face-to-face with the fence they came in over—and to the fifty, hundred, one-fifty infected pressed up against it, jaws snapping, hands grasping through the bars. The fence creaks, leans forward at a precarious angle, only a little force away from being pushed over outright. At the sight of the two of them, the infected double their efforts, cries mounting as they slam headlong into the fence.</p><p>Hamilton yanks them both back around the corner.</p><p>“Well,” Jefferson says, voice bland. “We’re not going that way.”</p><p>The fence creaks ominously, prompting each of them to shift nervously.</p><p>“Any more bright ideas?” Hamilton asks. “Or grenades?”</p><p>Jefferson glances around.</p><p>“Gotta be another part of the perimeter that’s less crowded. We’ll take the long way around.”</p><p>It’s hardly half a mile wide in either direction, but before they have the chance to see—metal shrieks, then hits asphalt. Infected shriek.</p><p>“New plan!” Jefferson cries, even as they’re already running.</p><p>Jefferson has the height advantage, pulls a few yards ahead, then skids to a halt with a gasp. There’s another fence in front of them, equally filled with infected on the other side.</p><p>Hamilton skids, pivots left, yanks Jefferson with him. Infected howl close behind him, rattle the fence. Hamilton doesn’t look back, lest he trip, fall, lose hope—has to believe there’s a way out of here other than getting torn apart. They reach another side of the fence—fucking infected, dozens of them, infected everywhere.</p><p>Fucking infected everywhere—in front of them, behind them, beside them. They torque again, keep running, never stopping, never slowing, running, running running <em> runningrunningrunning</em>.</p><p>There’s not going to be anywhere else to run.</p><p>“Fuck,” Jefferson swears, head whirling around wildly. “Fuck, fuck, fuck—<em>there!” </em></p><p>He sprints to the side of a military truck, dives to the ground, rolls, taking Hamilton with him. The two of them crowd together under the truck, pressed tightly together, faces inches away from the innards of the truck. Desperately, they try to stop the frantic heaving of their chests, slow their breaths to something manageable, inaudible. The infected shriek closer, closer—and then their feet are around the truck, shuffling, shambling, searching.</p><p>Hamilton’s hand curls vise-like around Jefferson’s arm.</p><p>They’re surrounded. Completely swarmed. Trapped.</p><p>If any of the infected saw them hide—Hamilton’s teeth cut into his tongue, flooding his mouth with blood. The taste nauseates him, but gives him something to focus on, a reminder he’s not dead.</p><p>Bloody sneakers shuffle beside the side of the truck and stop.</p><p>Hamilton withers in on himself, seals his eyes shut, his hand falling to his pistol. Jefferson’s hands curl around the grip of his shotgun. There’s a next to zero chance they’ll make it out if they have to fight. They don’t know how many others are surrounding them, probably couldn’t even get out under the truck before they’re torn apart.</p><p>They don’t breathe.</p><p>The sneakers hobble away.</p><p>Hamilton swallows, realizes how dry his throat is. He desperately wants a drink, but he doesn’t trust himself to be stone-silent if he fishes his bottle out of his pack, is afraid he’ll give them away. As he thinks about it, half a dozen other things occur to him. Rocks dig into his back. His hands are scraped from their lunge under the truck. He’s sliced his arm somewhere in the process, and blood’s gradually wetting his sleeve. Jefferson’s—fuck.</p><p>Jefferson is charcoal-hot pressed beside him, sweat beading on his brow. His eyes are dinner-plate wide, locked fixedly on the machinery inches above their face. Hamilton’s still holding onto his arm, grip probably painfully tight—Hamilton loosens his hold.</p><p>Jefferson’s eyes slide to his, conveying something that Hamilton doesn’t understand, that Madison surely would. Hamilton knows there’s something he’s supposed to do, but fuck if he knows what. Hamilton just does what he was going to do anyways:</p><p>“What now?” he mouths.</p><p>Jefferson looks away, tries to get a count of the infected wandering around his side of the truck, but gives up with a shake of his head: <em> fuck if I know. </em></p><p>Hamilton weighs their options.</p><p>As long as he can walk, Madison will come looking for them in a day or two. But there’s a dozen variables leading up until then, a dozen things that could go wrong: they run out of water, they accidentally make a sound, they get discovered. And there’s always the possibility that Madison takes a turn for the worst, that they’re on their own. That Madison's—<em>no.</em></p><p>The minutes tick away.</p><p>Give way to hours? Hamilton isn’t sure, can’t mark the time with anything other than the near-nonexistent rise of Jefferson’s chest. But time must pass—before long, the light begins to take on an orangeish hue, marking the start of twilight.</p><p>The longer they wait, the weaker they’ll get. The worse their chances. </p><p>And if something happens at night?</p><p>Hamilton wets his lips with a dry tongue, his mind made up.</p><p>Jefferson’s so tightly pushed-up against him that Hamilton barely has to turn his neck to look at him.</p><p>“I have a plan,” he says, voice so quiet he may as well not say it at all. “I’m going to lure them away. While I’m getting them, take the shit and get the hell out.”</p><p>“What, and leave you for the fuckin’ vultures?” Jefferson incredulously replies, equally hushed.</p><p>“I’ll be fine,” Hamilton reassures him, passing the medicine bag into Jefferson’s hands, sliding off his own backpack. He needs to be as light as possible, nothing dragging him down. He carefully withdraws his water, drinks deeply. “I’m light on my feet. I'll outmaneuver them. Even if I get bit, I’ll be fine. You won’t.”</p><p>“Wow.” Jefferson blinks at him, amazed. “I never think it’s possible, but somehow you always manage to out-stupid yourself." He shakes his head vigorously. "Fuck that—we’ll wait for them to thin out.”</p><p>”They <em> might </em>thin out—or they might kill us first! And we’ve got the medicine, and Madison’s sick as shit, and we might not make it if we stay. We’re not exactly saturated with time here.”</p><p>“Yeah, and his odds without it are a hell of a lot better than yours against a fucking horde.” Jefferson’s eyes bore into his, flashing. “I’m not fucking leaving you. Non-negotiable.”</p><p>Hamilton looks away, shifts as his fingers curl around his water bottle.</p><p>“Well,” Hamilton says. “It’s a good thing we negotiated that I can overrule you.”</p><p>Jefferson anticipates what he’s doing, grabs ahold of him—but Hamilton’s anticipated that too, splashes what’s left of his water in Jefferson’s face, surprising him just enough that Hamilton’s able to break free, roll out from beneath the truck, leap onto his feet.</p><p>He runs.</p><p>            </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Madison answers the door, grey-faced.</p><p>Red-rimmed eyes stare blankly at Hamilton. Blink hard, as if he's trying to clear up an afterimage. He makes no move to step out of the doorway.</p><p>After a solid ten seconds, Hamilton loses his patience and slides past him anyways. He needs to take care of his injuries. Needs to eat something, drink something. But more than anything, he wants to rest. He heads for the closest couch.</p><p>“Jefferson?” Madison calls, voice strangely stilted. “I’m not feeling well at all.”</p><p>Jefferson materializes in the den before Hamilton can even crash—freezes. His face is flushed, splotchy, eyes red and swollen, widening when they catch sight of Hamilton.</p><p>The room is silent.</p><p>“Well,” Hamilton tells them, forcing a smile. “Good news: we get to find out if that first bite was a fluke.”</p><p>Jefferson blinks at him. Madison, looking tired, goes to sit down on the couch. Hamilton looks between the two of them, exhausted, trying to figure out what he’s missed in the past day and a half. He’s tired, so fucking tired, just wants to pass the hell out—not deal with whatever the hell’s going on here.</p><p>“Thomas, please, I’m having a crisis here,” Madison finally speaks up, plainly freaked out. “Is Hamilton dead or not?”</p><p>“Oh, no,” Jefferson replies, voice low, his eyes never leaving Hamilton. He’s rediscovered his voice, apparently rediscovered his ability to move, apparently just now discovered the single expression that strikes terror into Hamilton's heart. "Oh, he’s definitely fucking dead. I just told you prematurely.”</p><p>Hamilton has half the mind to run as Jefferson rounds on him, his hands raising like he’s on the brink of strangling him. Jefferson stops only half a foot short, instead decides just to stab a finger into Hamilton’s chest with what looks like a mountain of restraint.</p><p>“What the <em> fuck </em> was that?” Jefferson demands. “I thought you were <em> dead! </em> I—Jesus Christ, Hamilton, I heard you scream. You were—<em>fuck.” </em></p><p>Hamilton pulls back the sleeve of his shirt in response, shows the worst of the wounds he’s picked up—two rows of teeth deep in the muscle of his forearm, accompanied by deeply clawed gashes.</p><p>“It was just a bite,” he explains, eyes averted. “I got away. Got chased in the wrong direction. Hid in a gas station until some wandered off. Five bites.” He glances away. “I got sick fast the first time. Feel fine now.” Laughs sharply, guiltily. “I guess I’ve got immunity built up now.”</p><p>“Jesus, Hamilton, I don’t care that you’re immune! You could’ve—”</p><p>“It was a better plan than the one you had, and you fucking know it,” Hamilton cuts him off. “You clearly made it back, and Madison <em> still </em>looks like he got hit by a fucking car—"</p><p>Madison isn’t even following the conversation, head tipped back, eyes shut tight in pain, taken out of the situation by what must be a blinding headache.</p><p>“Why would you do something so <em>goddamned </em>stupid—”</p><p>“Because you’re my friends!” Hamilton yells, the thing he’s been denying himself for weeks—longer—tumbling out of his mouth before he can stop it. “You’re the last two goddamned people I have left! Everyone else is dead or fuck knows where or somewhere I'm too wanted to go to! If anything happens to either of you, guess what? That’s fucking it for me! I’m gonna be alone until I die—because everyone in the damn <em> country wants me dead! </em>”</p><p>There’s something in him that’s dangerously cracked, held together by nothing more than sheer will. If it breaks—that’s it. Hamilton won’t ever accept any side-of-the-road invites again, won’t ever accept help, won’t ever open his mouth to another person again unless it’s a threat coming out. He’ll be alone, because experience will have proved yet again that it’s best to be that way, that he can’t be hurt if he never lets anyone else in.</p><p>Hamilton shouldn’t even have ever let either of them in. He spent so long telling himself that he didn’t care, spent so long telling himself that he didn’t even like them—and he couldn’t fucking do it in the end. He broke down, cracked because Madison's been crying, because Jefferson's obviously been crying, because they <em>care</em> about him—fuck, they care about him. They give a shit.</p><p>They thought he was dead, and they were mourning.</p><p>They care about him.</p><p>Jefferson stares at him. His hands—still held out as though Hamilton’s one infraction from being strangled—slowly fall to his sides as anger melts away from his face.</p><p>“Have we stopped yelling?” Madison asks, pained, his head clutched in his hands.</p><p>Jefferson’s tongue wets his lips.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says to Madison after a moment, face softening. <em> “Désolé, mon bonheur.” </em></p><p>Hamilton’s heart twinges.</p><p>Jefferson turns back to him.</p><p>Hamilton waits. </p><p>And Jefferson moves forward. Hamilton tenses, ready to get clocked across the jaw—but instead Jefferson slings his arms around him, draws him into an embrace so tight Hamilton fears for the fate of his ribs. </p><p>He freezes.</p><p>“You fucking idiot,” Jefferson tells him, his voice hoarse. “I was terrified. I thought you were dead. I thought—fuck. I was so fucking terrified, Hamilton.”</p><p>Hamilton hesitates—then raises clumsy hands, returns the embrace.</p><p>Jefferson’s chest heaves only once.</p><p>If it were anyone else, Hamilton might call it a sob.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>as always, thank y'all so much for your comments!!!! i love hearing what bits y'all enjoyed, especially when it's one of my favorite parts too!! i see an inbox notification and i go :)<br/>-HD thomas jefferson..., holy shit<br/>-TLOU2 was a trip. hit me up in my tumblr DMs (@cyanspica) if you also played it and want to talk! also, follow me there for updates/DOAN memes/other hamilton stuff!<br/>-starting some language courses, so updating may slow a little, but you can almost certainly expect at least one update a month, probably more since the next couple chapters look like they'll be on the shorter side. you know, relatively speaking haha<br/>-funny story for the sunglasses: i was thinking of these and accidentally described the exact sunglasses i saw weeks ago in a piece of fanart commissioned by my legend beta m. and drawn by my friend @ovrarches on insta. image here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CA4kFEiDVug/<br/>-lafayette actually (supposedly) gave the alligator to john quincy adams but he wasn't born yet here so john adams it was<br/>as always, thanks for reading! :)</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Skin in the Game</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>posted a side fic to be read right after this chapter: check the end notes for the link (or go the Death of a Nation series--all the other side fics will be posted in there as well, so bookmark/subscribe to the series if you want notifs for everything!)</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Imprecise, intangible, yellow dreams wake Hamilton.</p><p>He’s too hot. Even though they’re hundreds of miles south of Boston, it’s still early March, and the temperatures slip below freezing at night more often than not. It's below freezing now; he shouldn't be hot. Hamilton throws off the sheets and grimaces at the vaguely sweat-tacky feeling sticking his clothes to his skin.</p><p>Hamilton listens, but the house is quiet. Silently, he gets up and creeps down the hall to the restroom.</p><p>He’s so damn out of it from the stress of the last days and sleep deprivation that he actually tries to turn on the sink faucet. There’s no water, of course—hasn’t been any water since July late last year. Still, the affront pricks his temper, and he has to struggle not to lash out, not to break his foot punting something porcelain.</p><p>Hamilton steps back, sits back on the edge of the tub and buries his face in his hands.</p><p>As the seconds tick away, he’s gradually aware that his shirt is particularly tacky against his back, warm as it clings to his skin. He mistakes it for sweat at first, but the slow, hot trickle of something between his shoulder blades tips him off that it’s blood instead. Fine—something to focus on.</p><p>Hamilton pulls off his shirt. The cool air feels good against his overheated skin.</p><p><em>Feverish, </em>his mind supplies. <em>You’re running a fever.</em></p><p>He turns to crane his neck and look in the mirror. One of the infected has clawed him good, raked red streaks in series of five down his back. The injury barely registered on him earlier when there were more pressing wounds to tend to, but, clearly, this one’s been aggrieved by the lack of attention. Hamilton retrieves his personal first-aid kit from his pack in the bedroom, returns to the bathroom, wets a rag with hydrogen peroxide. The angle is awkward, mostly ineffective, but before he can get frustrated, a dark shape materializes outside of the cracked-open door.</p><p>Whoever it is quiet, unobtrusive—which means it’s Madison.</p><p>“Let me,” he offers as he slips through the door.</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t argue—not that Madison allows him the chance. It’s for the best, probably; he’s immune to the cordyceps infection, not every infection known to man. He's already running a fever. The last thing he wants is to die of sepsis because he couldn’t clean out a couple of cuts himself.</p><p>Madison sits Hamilton down on the edge of the bathtub, splays one cool, steadying hand across the back of his neck to keep him from flinching. Hamilton stiffens instinctively, hisses when Madison sponges at the steaks of blood in various stages of drying down his back.</p><p>“Have you cleaned the rest of your injuries?” Madison asks, his voice quiet.</p><p>“Yeah. I’m not a fucking idiot.”</p><p>The bite wound on his arm’s already wrapped; so are the two on his left calf, the one on his shoulder, the one on the heel of his palm. Beyond the bites, his hands are shredded to ribbons by barbed wire, and he’s pretty sure his wrist is sprained, but all his organs are still in place inside of him, still where they’re supposed to be, and that’s what matters most.</p><p>Madison folds the rag over to a clean patch and rewets it with peroxide. Hamilton winces at the sting but keeps still and focuses on the shower wall tiles.</p><p>“Are you feeling better?” Hamilton asks him out of obligation.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>There’s a strained element to their conversation. Hamilton isn’t sure why, but he’s aware that each of their words sounds overstuffed, brimming with something they won’t quite verbalize.</p><p>Madison sets the rag aside and searches until he finds a tube of antiseptic ointment.</p><p>“You should save that for—”</p><p>“I’ll use it when I please, and that's now.”</p><p>Something cool and thick spreads across Hamilton’s shoulder blades, spread halfway down his spine. Hamilton sits stock-still, counts the tiles on the wall in front of him.</p><p>"You're running a fever," Madison says after a moment, his skin cool against Hamilton's. "How do you feel?"</p><p>“If you thought I was dead, you should’ve left,” Hamilton finally blurts out, the words spilling out of his mouth before he even realizes what he’s going to say, realizes that he's not going to answer Madison's question at all. “There’s a fucking horde wandering around. I mean, <em> at least </em>one horde. For all we know, there could be others. You could've gotten surrounded. Killed. Why didn’t you leave?”</p><p>
  <em>You should’ve left.</em>
</p><p>Madison’s hand stills, splays flat against Hamilton’s shoulder. The touch is grounding, even though Hamilton knows it shouldn’t be—and certainly not as much as it is.</p><p>“He said he didn’t see your body,” Madison at last answers.</p><p>“So?” Hamilton challenges him.</p><p>“Because I didn’t want to believe you were dead. Satisfied?”</p><p>His answer is perfectly composed on the surface, but it belies something raw.</p><p>The two of them haven’t settled yesterday’s events yet—not really. Hamilton and Jefferson did, sure. Jefferson crushed him in his hold for what felt like an hour, even though it couldn’t have been more than a dozen seconds. Of course, as soon as he let go, Hamilton beat a hasty retreat upstairs under the pretense of needing to redress his wounds—so maybe the two of them aren’t really settled either.</p><p>Hamilton knows he should’ve gone back downstairs, talked, but instead he went to the room he’d commandeered and passed the hell out. Either Madison or Jefferson came to check on him—more than once, actually—but he feigned sleep, laid still until the door slid shut again.</p><p>So he and Madison haven’t settled things.</p><p>And his answer hits Hamilton harder than he expects.</p><p>“Guess I’m just hard to kill,” Hamilton lightly replies: he means it as a joke, but the <em>can never seem to die </em>rings in his mind<em>.</em></p><p>“And I’m hard to upset, but you seem to make a habit of it,” Madison retorts, too sharp, too biting, the anger he suppresses surging into the words.</p><p>It’s a mistake, clearly unintentional, because Madison drags in a quick breath, immediately softens the blow with impassively spoken words that Hamilton can’t hear over the sudden rush of blood in his ears.</p><p>“I ran from Laurens,” Hamilton confesses.</p><p>Madison pauses. Hamilton is suddenly thankful he can’t see the man’s expression.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Back in Boston. You asked me why I didn’t run before I got bit the first time.” Hamilton’s eyes don’t stray from the tiles. It’s only now that he notices they’re yellowed with age, not white at all. “I ran from Laurens in Charleston.”</p><p>Madison waits for more—or he’s just at a loss for what to do.</p><p>The words are coming to Hamilton now, spilling out like he’s blasted a dam open. He doesn't know if he's known the answer all along, if he’s shoved them down so deeply that they're only boiling over just now or if he really hasn’t known the answer until this exact moment, this moment as he stares into yellowed shower tiles, Madison's hand splayed across the back of his neck. It doesn't matter, he decides.</p><p>The words keep coming, hard and fast, leave his mouth like glass, slicing him up as they fall out.</p><p>“He was already bit,” Hamilton explains, voice choked. “And we were surrounded. So he drew them away. He told me he loved me, and then<em>—</em>then he told me to run.” Hamilton closes his eyes, and images flash behind his lids. “And I did.”</p><p>Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Madison drop to a sit on the side of the tub beside him.</p><p>He’s there—unspeaking, silent, silently willing to be whatever Hamilton needs him to be.</p><p>And that’s enough.</p><p>(It has to be enough, because there's nothing else Hamilton can have).</p><p>Hamilton is tired of being alone.</p><p>(Even though he doesn’t belong. Maybe he’s not alone now, but he doesn’t belong. He’ll never be anything but an afterthought, a piece of a puzzle forced to fit somewhere it doesn’t belong).</p><p>But he’s not alone—not in this moment, not here.</p><p>They sit through the night.</p><p>The star-spangled sky shines: the same constellations from a year and a half earlier still hang in the sky, even though everything under them has changed.</p><p>“I didn’t want to run again,” Hamilton at last breathes out, answering Madison's question weeks late. “In Boston. You asked me. Why I didn’t leave you before I got bit.” His eyes fix on the rising sun. “I didn’t want to run again. And… and I couldn’t have let you die too. It wouldn’t have been worth staying alive a little longer.”</p><p>Outside, dawn glows golden.</p><p>            </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Are you feeling better?” Jefferson asks Madison over breakfast.</p><p>“I feel fine, thank you.”</p><p>“Fine like that time in Annapolis when you told me that and then had to get taken to the hospital, or…?”</p><p><em>"Fine,</em> Thomas.”</p><p>And he eats a little breakfast that morning, manages to keep it down. By dinner, the color’s back in his face, and by the end of the week, he’s as good as he’s ever been.</p><p>Jefferson too returns to normal, loses the constant hard lines in his shoulders, goes back to flashing white-toothed smiles, to his obnoxious laughs, to baiting and being baited by Hamilton.</p><p>They act the same way as always, Hamilton realizes. They treat him the same.</p><p>Both of them are back to normal; Hamilton’s the one that’s different. He's the one that lets himself be a part of the kind of conversations he’d previously avoided, the one that lets himself take part in their little rituals, the one that lets himself open up. Only sometimes, only ever in tiny, measured rations<em>—</em>but it's more than he gave before.</p><p>But Madison and Jefferson are the same as they were before.</p><p>Days on, Hamilton realizes that the two of them have cared about him long before he ever allowed himself to care back.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Time goes on. Eventually, winter gives way to spring.</p><p>Cold-hardened earth softens and warms until shoots of grass flowers push through the soil. The wildflowers in overgrown gardens and by the sides of the road grow bright and tall, uninhibited by mowers and weed killer. Their trio runs across deer with fawns, foxes with kits, rabbits shadowed by frail little white-tailed things. In some ways, the world seems more alive than ever.</p><p>Mid-March, Jefferson reteaches Hamilton how to drive; after so long, he’s rusty.</p><p>“If you crash my car, so <em> help me god,” </em>Jefferson will swear whenever Hamilton cuts a too-sharp turn—which he sometimes does on purpose, just to get a rise out of his friend.</p><p>And Hamilton will shoot back something like,</p><p>“If you don’t quit bitching, I’m going to sideswipe the next guardrail I see.”</p><p>And Madison will look nauseated in the backseat, clutch onto the <em>oh shit </em>handle above the door.</p><p>Jefferson and Madison’s birthdays come in spring: Hamilton slips out one night to raid an old music store and hilariously awfully gift-wraps his presents with old newspapers.</p><p>“I’ll be damned,” Jefferson, newly thirty-one, says when he opens his box. His lips twist into a delighted smile that’s only half-suppressed. “ABBA—good pick.”</p><p>And for Madison’s:</p><p>“Oh,” Madison, newly thirty, says. He’s sifted through all of Hamilton’s painstakingly collected half dozen opera CDS—because it’s 2013, and <em>no</em> <em>one</em> fucking listens to opera—but he stops on one in particular. “Look,” he murmurs to Jefferson, voice suddenly soft as a faint, reminiscent smile crosses his face. “He found a copy of <em>La bohème.”</em></p><p>Life goes on, and it’s largely the same.</p><p>Most moments are occupied by the simple grind of staying alive, of scavenging and shooting and the simple drudgery of surviving. Find water; boil water. Hunt, fish, forage: prepare food. Find gas. Check supplies. Clean wounds, clean clothes, clean guns.</p><p>Repetitive, predictable patterns.</p><p>But between the mold of survival, there are moments where the three of them sit and talk over a meal that almost feel normal. There are early mornings where none of them are awake enough for the weight to have settled on their shoulders: they exchange tired smiles over cups of coffee and tea, and they sit and enjoy each other’s company in silence. There are nights when one or two or all of them can’t sleep, where they meet in the oddest of places while the dark hangs over the world.</p><p>If there’s a piano where they've stopped, that’s where Hamilton meets Madison. Madison favors Chopin to Beethoven and Bach these days, he’ll explain as he plays. And when his fingers dance and sing over the keys, the melodies are unpredictable and soft and breathless, almost gasping—and unmistakably, painfully human.</p><p>Hamilton usually finds Jefferson curled in an armchair reading Camus or Sartre or de Beauvoir—he favors the French existentialist philosophers, he says, <em> because the French do everything better </em>—and when sees Hamilton, he smiles, a thin, dry, knowing press of his lips, and reads aloud until he and Hamilton find some premise or principle to argue over until they’re too deep in their debate to remember what brought them there to begin with.</p><p>And sometimes Madison and Jefferson are both up, quiet murmurs floating from behind closed doors—sometimes in French, sometimes not. Even though he can’t see them, Hamilton can picture them clearly. Jefferson’s arms are inevitably wrapped around Madison’s shoulders, his waist, and Madison’s forehead is inevitably tucked into Jefferson’s neck.</p><p>The image makes him feel cold, even though the temperatures have warmed.</p><p>But most often, the three of them meet together. Jefferson and Madison seldom seem to be able to stay asleep if the other isn’t there with him, and Hamilton’s pacing or sighing or clanging drags them out like a moth to flame. All of them meet in kitchens or living rooms or—once the nights go from frostbite-cold to pleasantly cool—on the roof of the Escalade, the three of them splayed out across the metal, staring silently up at the sky, each of them lost in their own minds.</p><p>In early April, Hamilton finds a book on constellations, takes to learning them, pointing them out when the silence and his mind get to be too much to bear.</p><p>“There’s Orion,” he murmurs, pointing out the stars and tracing their linkages with a finger. “Canis Major. Vela…”</p><p>And they indulge him.</p><p>There are moments Hamilton isn’t a part of. Embraces. Intertwined fingers. Seemingly innocent phrases that provoke knowing smiles. Desperate, frantic kisses after close calls.</p><p><em> “Je t’aime,” </em>one says.</p><p><em> “Je t’aime aussi,” </em>the other answers.</p><p>And, of course, there are bad moments.</p><p><em>"The King sent reinforcements,” </em> Hercules tells them through the radio. <em>"</em><em>Warned Adams."</em></p><p>
  <em> “More troops. British numbers doubled: Sons in trouble. Adams calling back troops to hold Harvard.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Sons beat them off—lost too many to survive a second wave.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Redcoats making push to drive Sons out. Adams knows. Sons retreating tonight while it's dark.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Sons on the run. Hard to get ahold of Adams. Redcoats not chasing—for now.” </em>
</p><p>Jefferson scrubs weary, worried hands over his face, swears out everything under from the sun starting with the King and ending with every last atom in the universe—and then the King again, for good measure.</p><p>(Jefferson can never sleep after Hercules’ updates: Hamilton always finds him awake).</p><p>There are things that set Madison’s jaw straight, his eyes set dead forwards. Hamilton doesn’t know what does it half the time—but the worst offender comes to light soon enough.</p><p>The problem is that Washington is everywhere, Hamilton comes to realize.</p><p>Every storefront still has its magazines. Every newspaper rack is filled with old papers. Almost every house has something of that sort somewhere. And the one thing that they almost all of them have in common is Washington’s face, pleasant and smiling, splashed across the front with something like <em>Meet the Newest Ambassador </em>printed below the portrait. Almost as if Washington is watching from the other side, watching the slow, staggering decay of the nation.</p><p>And there are other things, too—other hints and mentions and allusions to Madison and Jefferson’s lost lives, reminders neither of them must be able to escape.</p><p>Hamilton opens a magazine once—is surprised when he comes to a half-page picture of Madison and Jefferson. <em> At Thomas Jefferson’s garden in Monticello, </em>the caption reads. Roses bloom around them as they walk a gravel path, Jefferson mid-laugh as Madison smiles faintly in a way Hamilton knows is suppressed. Madison's smile is reserved here for the cameras, held-back.</p><p>“<em>Washington is one of my dearest friends—the oldest friend I have, save for Jefferson,” </em> Madison’s quoted in one of the very first lines, “<em>who is as dear to me as anything.” </em></p><p>Hamilton closes the magazine.</p><p>(Sometimes, if he’s in a kitchen or living room or a store and he sees something first, he tucks it somewhere out of the way before Madison sees. It's not enough. One day Hamilton finds a magazine with part of a page ripped out—and the caption printed under what’s missing: <em>The Madison family</em>).</p><p>And then there’s a run-in with a group of survivors at the end of April.</p><p>“Don’t fucking move,” someone threatens, and cold metal jams into the back of Hamilton’s neck.</p><p>“Are you fucking kidding me?” Hamilton snarls when he looks over and finds Jefferson similarly compromised, eyes black with fury at the betrayal. “We hear fucking screaming, come running, and <em> save your asses, </em>and you’re gonna shoot us in the goddamn back?”</p><p>The gun in his neck almost seems falter—then it jams forward again, shoves Hamilton forward.</p><p>“We’ve gotta get out of here. Look—for what’s it worth, I’m sorry.”</p><p>“You will be,” Jefferson speaks up, voice low and vicious. He smiles, a white flash of bared teeth. “There’s three of us—now, I’m no mathematician, but last I counted, y’all only got two.”</p><p>Not long after, Madison’s bullets punch holes through two of their necks; in the chaos, Jefferson and Hamilton get the rest, concealed knives cutting like butter through flesh.</p><p>“Can’t fucking do <em> shit </em>for people these days,” Jefferson swears when it’s over, angry and defeated.</p><p>(Hamilton could’ve told him that months ago—more than a year ago. He could say that he was only there at all because Jefferson rushed off first—but he doesn’t. Instead, he lets the words die long before they make it anywhere close to his tongue).</p><p>Hamilton gets bit again in April. Teeth carve through the meat of his shoulder before he blows out the infected’s brain. Just like after the medicine incident, he comes down with a fever. Feels fine within a day. Hardly speaks for a week.</p><p>The photo strip of Laurens seems to burn every time his hand slips into his pocket.</p><p>(<em>Should’ve been someone else).</em></p><p>So there are bad moments, moments that are something in-between bad and good, moments that simply are, moments where things feel normal.</p><p>But there are other moments.</p><p>Hamilton likes driving. Likes the single-minded calm it brings him. Likes when Madison’s in the front seat, murmurs translations of the sopranos and tenors coming through the speakers, teaching him Italian. Likes when Jefferson hums along to Hamilton’s scavenged CDs—like when Jefferson thinks they’re both asleep and sings along under his breath, his voice smooth like velvet, slow like molasses, sweet like honey. Likes the safety of the car, the comfort of it, the way it sometimes even feels like home—or as close to home as he can ever get again, at least.</p><p>There are moments, sometimes minutes, sometimes entire hours—where Hamilton forgets about the red-pink-white puncture marks on his neck, arm, calf.</p><p>And sometimes, early, early in the morning—before the weight has truly settled back onto Hamilton’s shoulders—there are moments where he catches himself almost-smiling for no reason at all.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They’re driving one afternoon at the end of May when something pops so loud Hamilton’s startled half out of his seat.</p><p>“The fuck was that?” Hamilton irritably asks Jefferson, bending over to retrieve his book. “I lost my fucking page! Great. Jesus, all the shit you give me about crashing your damn car, and you fucking hit something.”</p><p>“I didn’t hit anything!” Jefferson snaps.</p><p>“Are you sure? ‘cause it sounded like you hit something.”</p><p>Something metallic clangs, then bangs around like a screwdriver in a washing machine. Almost instantly, their bickering stops. Hamilton’s eyes skirt nervously to the source of the sound—right in front of them, beneath the hood of the car.</p><p>“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Please don’t,” Jefferson pleads.</p><p>The sound only grows, and within ten seconds, Hamilton’s convinced the engine’s somehow gotten stuffed with rocks. Jefferson swears a string of words so colorful and evocative that even Hamilton’s taken aback. Madison’s still only half-woken up from his exhausted-induced nap, groggy as he assesses the situation. A tired sigh heaves out of his chest as he scrubs a hand over his face.</p><p>“Pull over,” he tells Jefferson, even though Jefferson’s well on his way there already—and before he even can, the engine cuts out completely, forcing them to coast to a stop. Snarled swears from the three of them fill the car as Madison pops open the glovebox and starts to root around. “Where are we?”</p><p>“Northwest corner of Georgia.”</p><p>Madison selects a map, smooths it out over the dash. His finger trails over the map until he at last finds something that looks promising. His finger taps down, then he looks outside.</p><p>“It’s a quarter to eight,” Jefferson says, accurately anticipating his next question. “We’re a dozen miles from the closest highway. My vote’s just to squat here for the night, find a tow tomorrow. We go now, and we’re gonna risk being caught out in the dark.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, we’re pretty fucking exposed out here,” Hamilton points out.</p><p>There are thick woods a dozen yards to either side of the road, but the car is distinctly out-of-place, much too well-kept to have been abandoned. That’s the problem with the fucking Escalade and its shiny black paint and its meticulously well-kept exterior and its glossy Cadillac emblem. If anyone passes by, they’re not exactly sitting inconspicuous.</p><p>“Well, shit, Hamilton, I can’t solve the world’s problems,” Jefferson sighs, turning to the side. “Madison?”</p><p>“<em>I</em><em>’d </em> like to get back to sleep. I’m still tired enough I might be able to,” is all he says, his eyes shutting again. Quieter, to Jefferson: “You know I’ve been sleeping terribly lately.”</p><p>Jefferson’s eyes flick into the rear mirror, meeting Hamilton’s.</p><p>A beat passes—on anyone else, Jefferson’s expression might look like a plea.</p><p>“Fine,” Hamilton gives in. “Here's fine. Whatever.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em> Click. </em>
</p><p>The sound wakes Hamilton up instantly. He’s still a touch drowsy, too tired to tell what made the sound or if that was even what woke him up at all. After all, the Escalade is dark and silent; Madison and Jefferson are still deep asleep in the furthest row back. Jefferson is even drooling, a detail that Hamilton summarily notices and catalogues to mock him over later.</p><p>There are a few beats of silence. Hamilton’s guard falls.</p><p>He starts to close his eyes.</p><p>And like that, there’s a strange, tortured sound, another dozen nearby <em>clicks </em>in quick succession.</p><p>Hamilton jerks wide awake, sitting up straight up, his head turning to the window.</p><p>An infected, inches away, stares straight at him.</p><p>“<em>Jesus fucking Christ!” </em>he shrieks, and suddenly Jefferson screeches awake in a hail of flailing limbs, and then Madison comes to life with a storm of swearing, and the smaller of the two men is awake for exactly half a second before a stray arm thrashes him in the face, snaps his head back.</p><p>“I’m awake!” Jefferson loudly announces, frenzied and disoriented. “I’m awake!”</p><p>“Oh, you <em> motherfucker </em>—” Madison moans at the same time, clutching his jaw.</p><p>The two of them take another few seconds to gather themselves, during which time, the infected’s head swirls slowly to the car. It’s hard to tell just how well sound-proofed the car is, but the infected watches a second, then takes a shambling step right into the window. It pisses the fucking thing off, sends it <em>clicking </em>wildly with its arm swinging and beating against the glass.</p><p>“You got me punched in the goddamned jaw over a <em>single</em> <em>infected?”</em> Madison asks after everyone’s regained their common sense. He’s outright aggressive; another time, that would come as a surprise, but if there’s anything that can be counted on, it’s that an unceremoniously woken Madison is not a Madison Hamilton wants to be around.</p><p>And with that, Jefferson seems to remember that he knocked the living shit out of Madison five seconds ago, because he instantly descends into guilty helicoptering.</p><p>“Oh, fuck, Jemmy, baby, I’m so sorry. How bad is it? Are you bleeding? Do you want me to get ice?”</p><p>“Where, pray tell, are you going to get me ice in the middle of the <em> apocalyptic summer</em><em>?"</em></p><p>“Okay, right, yes, so I can’t actually do ice, but I can do Advil—"</p><p>Hamilton leaves Jefferson to his fretting, scrubs a hand over his face, and tries to calm his wildly thumping heart. He fucking hates the infected, fucking hates getting jump-scared, can’t believe there used to be a time when he genuinely enjoyed being scared, enjoyed sitting through slasher flicks and bad horror films with Hercules and Laurens. It used to be so fucking fun to be scared shitless.</p><p>Not so much anymore.</p><p>Hamilton grabs his bow, loads an arrow, pops up through the sunroof.</p><p>He aims at the infected, still <em>clicking </em>gutturally between moans, and lets his arrow fly.</p><p>It shrieks, infuriated, head snapping up to Hamilton. Hamilton’s brows draws together as he notices two things: first, the infected’s face is completely obscured, fully overgrown by orange fungal plates save for the cavernous cavity that should be a mouth. It has no forehead, no eyes, no nose—nothing but a half-sloughed off jaw and broken-off teeth.</p><p>Second, he didn’t miss.</p><p>“You didn’t hit it?” Jefferson shouts from inside the car, incredulous. “You’re ten feet away, for fuck’s sake!”</p><p>Hamilton pointedly ignores him and nocks another arrow.</p><p>Just like the first, it flies straight. This one lodges into the place an eye socket should be—an inch deep. Hamilton trades his bow for his pistol and shoots. The bullet shears away the fungal plates growing from its skull, and the thing stumbles back with a cry that’s all too human, clutching its head.</p><p>Hamilton shoots again.</p><p>This time, it goes down.</p><p>“I didn’t miss,” Hamilton finally replies, deeply unsettled.</p><p>He climbs through the sunroof, slides off the top of the Escalade to inspect the infected closer. After a moment, the car door swings open, and Madison and Jefferson slip out too. Jefferson toes its corpse, and when it doesn’t twitch, Madison drops to a crouch beside it, his exhausted, irritated expression somehow growing even more severe.</p><p>“I don’t suppose you’ve ever come across an infected that takes two arrows and as many bullets to kill?”</p><p>“Fuck that,” Jefferson cuts in. “What the hell was that sound it was making? Sounded like a damn<em>—</em>fuck, what're they called? The little clicking things you use to train dogs. Like that.”</p><p>“Some form of echolocation?” Madison ventures, tired. “Its eyes are… somewhere. Not being used, at least.”</p><p>Hamilton toes it again. It doesn’t twitch.</p><p>“Well, it ran straight into the car. It’s a little blind, at least.”</p><p>“Yeah, and apparently pre-installed with goddamn body armor.”</p><p>Madison groans miserably as he stands, rubbing a hand over his face.</p><p>“How’s your jaw?” Hamilton asks with a half-apologetic glance in Jefferson’s direction.</p><p>“Believe it or not, it’s been better,” Madison sharply responds, but a heaved-out sigh tempers his demeanor. <em>"I</em><em>t’s fine</em>. I’m fine. I’d just like to go back to sleep now if we’re done screaming ourselves awake. Please—don’t wake me up again.”</p><p>Madison words it like a request, but Hamilton knows better than to take it as anything but a warning. Madison is outwardly composed, calm, but there are some things that Hamilton knows better than to disturb: his tea, his meditation, his sleep.</p><p>They climb back into the Escalade, lock the doors, and Hamilton doesn’t make another sound.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Only Madison doesn’t sleep, Hamilton knows—because he doesn’t sleep again either.</p><p>Jefferson’s breathing, slow and soft, fills the car.</p><p>Madison and Hamilton are awake—but Madison doesn’t know that last half.</p><p>In his hands, Madison has something glossy and shiny and torn at the edges.</p><p><em>L</em><em>ike a picture out of a magazine, </em>Hamilton’s mind supplies, and the caption below the torn-out picture that appears in his mind reads: <em>The Madison Family.</em></p><p>Madison looks down.</p><p>In the dark, it’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>            </p><p>Jefferson wakes up; Hamilton pretends he slept, pretends to wake up. The three of them eat—granola bars, peanut butter, and coffee, with green tea for Madison. They make small talk.</p><p>“You feel okay?” Jefferson cautiously, guiltily asks Madison as they put plates away.</p><p>“Yes,” Madison blandly replies, sipping his tea to cut off the conversation.</p><p>He looks more tired than usual—which says something.</p><p>“What do you think ‘bout that infected from last night?” Jefferson asks Hamilton a few minutes later as they both reload guns, preparing for the expedition they’ll have to take.</p><p>“I think,” Hamilton replies, “that it’s gonna be bad for us if it’s not a one-off.”</p><p>“Story of our fuckin’ lives, huh?”</p><p>The two of them share a smile, dry and bitter.</p><p>Back in the front seat, Madison pours over the map, returns to the spot he picked out last night.</p><p>“Alright,” he says after a while. “Thomas, you and I will go find a truck to tow the Escalade here. Even if there’s no mechanic shop, we’ll at least be able track down a Yellow Pages.”</p><p>Hamilton blinks. He looks to Jefferson, who looks to Madison with arched brows, but says nothing—leaving it to him, apparently.</p><p>“Okay, so what the hell am I supposed to do?” Hamilton asks, mouth twisting into a scowl.</p><p>Madison avoids his gaze, keeps his eyes firmly planted on the map.</p><p>“Someone needs to guard the Escalade.”</p><p>“No, they don’t. You’ve said it before yourself—the glass’s bulletproof, and the body’s armored. Lock it, and no one’s getting in.”</p><p>“Alexander—”</p><p>“Oh, come on, don’t give me that shit—"</p><p>“Hamilton, I need to talk to Thomas,” Madison cuts in, pointed, a note of impatience in his voice.</p><p><em>Alone, </em>the implication rings out.</p><p>It doesn’t hurt Hamilton’s feelings—because it shouldn’t. There’s no reason it should.</p><p>“Fine,” he says, voice stretched tight and thin. “Leave the fucking keys.”</p><p>Without looking, Madison drops his set of keys onto the dash.</p><p>Hamilton wants him to say something else. He doesn’t know what.</p><p>But Madison doesn’t say anything at all.</p><p>“Okay,” Jefferson drawls, uncertain, elongating the <em> y </em>two seconds too long. Hamilton and Madison ice him out, and frustration wins out on Jefferson’s face; he’s as shitty a peacemaker as he was a politician. After three seconds of silence, Jefferson gives up on mediating between the two of them and skips straight to pacifying—something as equally unfamiliar, it would seem. “Look, Hamilton. We’re in hick Georgia. It’s gonna be an hour before we find a truck with a hitch. Tops.”</p><p>Jefferson doesn’t know what the fuck Madison wants to talk about—a rare occasion.</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t fucking care.</p><p>He doesn’t.</p><p>“Fine,” he says to Jefferson. Then, after a pause—to them both: “Don’t get killed.”</p><p>“When have I ever gotten killed before?” Jefferson shoots back before they leave.</p><p>Hamilton watches them go.</p><p>He’s not hurt. He doesn’t want to know why Madison doesn’t want him there. He doesn’t want to go after them anyways, make sure nothing happens.</p><p>He doesn’t care.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>A quarter hour later, he’s twitchy.</p><p>By the time half an hour’s passed, Hamilton climbs onto the roof, scouts them out.</p><p>At the hour mark, he’s loading his guns to after them when an engine rumbles nearby. He glances up in time to see a truck plucked straight from the Great Depression lumbering noisily down the road, Jefferson in the driver’s seat. Even before they’re close, Hamilton can make out the creases in Jefferson’s brow, the somber quality of his face. In the passenger’s seat, though, Madison looks forward, his expression the pinnacle of composure.</p><p>The truck comes to a stop behind the Escalade, and Hamilton climbs out, brows arched.</p><p>“How the hell’d you find get it to start without a jump?”</p><p>“Old trick. You get a manual in neutral, push it downhill, put it in second, release the clutch—engine starts itself if you’re lucky,” Jefferson answers, even though he’s not quite all there with them, vaguely troubled.</p><p>“You know how to drive a manual?” Hamilton asks him, brows raised.</p><p>“Sure. All the best classic cars were manuals. Used to drive a few around.”</p><p>Jefferson moves to hitch the vehicles together; Hamilton moves to hover, observing, noting the steps in case he ever has to replicate them himself.</p><p>“Run into any trouble?” Hamilton asks.</p><p>“Few infected came out while we were trying to get it moving. Nothing that bad—hopped up in the truck bed once we got moving and took ‘em out from there.”</p><p>It’s the not the question Hamilton wants to ask—but neither of them seem particularly inclined to share what he really wants to know.</p><p>
  <em>The fuck did you talk about?</em>
</p><p>Hamilton’s jaw ticks.</p><p>Madison hasn’t said a word, leans against the side of the Escalade, his eyes fixed on nothing in particular. Idly, his fingers tap against his thigh, playing silent piano melodies.</p><p>“Hamilton,” he says after a moment. “Do you have a cigarette?”</p><p>“What—a <em>cigarette?</em> You’re gonna set off your asthma,” Jefferson interrupts before Hamilton can get in a word, worried eyes flicking up from the truck hitch.</p><p>“My asthma hasn’t been a problem since we stopped spending time in cities with awful air quality,” Madison blows him off.</p><p>“Jemmy—”</p><p>“Hamilton. A cigarette?”</p><p>Hamilton glances between the two of them—Jefferson’s expression is pinched, but Madison still has the same veneer of calm, tranquility settled around him.</p><p>
  <em>What the fuck is going on?</em>
</p><p>Hamilton slips into the Escalade and finds a green-cardboard pack, then passes them over.</p><p>“Here,” he says. “I hate menthols.”</p><p>(Hercules would be disappointed in him, knowing he’s smoking again. Not frequently, of course—there’s not enough cigarettes left laying around for him to maintain an addiction—but still.)</p><p>Madison smokes halfway through the twenty-cigarette pack, lost in thought.</p><p>“He’s gonna puke,” Hamilton mutters to Jefferson, pretending to help him with the trailer.</p><p>Jefferson glances aside, frowning, worried.</p><p>“I don’t know…” Jefferson starts, but he trails off mid-sentence, mouth straightening into a line, deciding against whatever he’d been planning to say. Transparently, he changes the topic. “Here. Help me with this. Once we get moving, I’ll show you how to drive a manual. Might be useful someday.”</p><p>By the time Jefferson starts the truck up, twenty smoked-out cigarette butts litter the ground.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They get lucky—there’s an old, abandoned garage in the town Madison singled out. It was probably used more for tractor trailers and ATVs than Cadillacs, but it’s the best they’ve got.</p><p>They unhitch the Escalade, push it the last dozen feet into a far end in the garage, and then tug down the sheet metal doors, sealing themselves inside.</p><p>They poke around: a single big room, space for half a dozen vehicles, metal furniture chock full of tools Hamilton couldn’t identify with a gun to his head. Behind the main room, there’s a back room that’s half-office, half-break room. It's decorated sparsely with furniture, and a single locked door leads outside. There’s nothing of interest, save for the corpse of something that was probably recently a possum.</p><p>Jefferson descends into a fit of gagging at the sight, and the disgust that breaks through Madison’s composure effectively nominates Hamilton to deal with it—which he does, rolling his eyes. Decayed possum doesn’t even rank in the top five worst things he’s seen this week.</p><p>With the place cleared, they return to the Escalade. Jefferson pops the hood. They crowd around the front of the car, staring blankly down at the machinery.</p><p>“What do you think?” Hamilton asks after a few moments, reluctant.</p><p>“I think…” Jefferson trails off, frowning pensively. “…that it looks like a car?”</p><p>“Yeah. That’s what I was gonna say.”</p><p>“Is that… the engine?”</p><p>“Well, it’s the biggest part, so it must be. Right?”</p><p>Hamilton thinks they should just hold the car’s fucking funeral now and be done with.</p><p>“Jemmy, anything to add here?” Jefferson asks after a deep, heavy sigh.</p><p>“I was hopeful memories would come to me, but that appears not to be the case,” Madison replies, running a hand over his face. “My father and I restored a car together once.”</p><p>“Seriously? I never knew that,” Jefferson replies, brows drawn together.</p><p>“That would be because it was over twenty years ago.”</p><p>“Huh, well, that doesn’t sound like your ten-year-old-self’s idea of fun.”</p><p>“It wasn’t,” Madison responds, but a faint, sad smile flickers onto his face anyways. “But he could’ve picked worse father-son bonding activities, at least. At any rate—I’m afraid this is going to be a long stopover.”</p><p>“Great. Except for Madison—who's a <em>maybe— </em> none of us know shit about cars, we’re low on food, and there’s no fucking air conditioning,” Jefferson groans. “And it smells like dead fucking rodent in here.”</p><p>“Possums are mammals—marsupials, actually. Not rodents,” Hamilton dryly corrects him, earning himself a malicious glare.</p><p>“We have the Escalade owner's manual,” Madison interrupts before either of them has the chance to escalate their bickering. “And we’re all literate and capable of following instructions.”</p><p>“So that’s the plan?” Hamilton asks, shaking his head. “Troubleshoot until we get something?”</p><p>“I see no better alternative. Short of a military truck, no other vehicle’s going to offer the same protection. And I don’t exactly see of us being able to return to any Redcoat-occupied city soon.”</p><p>Hamilton spares a moment to think of the Sons: <em>where are you?</em></p><p>“I’m going to go look for food,” he says after a moment, stepping away from the car.</p><p>“I’ll go with you,” Jefferson offers—asserts, really.</p><p>“No thanks,” he replies, spite swelling in his chest and slipping out into his words as he looks to the shorter man. “You and Madison might need more time to talk.”</p><p>He’s not hurt, he tells himself.</p><p>He doesn’t care that he still gets iced out, despite their tentative, green friendship.</p><p>Some things have changed—but some things are just the same as they always were.</p><p>Hamilton leaves alone.</p><p>          </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>There’s no denying they’re in the backwoods now.</p><p>There’s little in the way of food—the houses here are scattered, far-apart, mostly picked clean. Some have boarded windows, <em> no trespassing signs </em>painted in something red, half-decayed infected skulls speared on fence spikes. He swears he sees shapes moving in the windows of some—and so he vows to avoid them all, keeps to the cover the woods provide.</p><p>There are no safe cities close; Atlanta fells ages ago. And this deep into the country, it’s perfectly plausible that some survivors have made it on their own this whole time. He doesn't like the thought. These days, other people make him nervous.</p><p>So Hamilton gives up on scavenging in old houses and traipses through the woods, trying to recall the tracking lessons Laurens gave him so long ago. He finds a trail, a worn path of trampled vegetation, and follows it to a cattail encircled pond. The water is murky and stagnant, half-covered by algae—but good enough for what he’s looking for. Hamilton creeps through the brush, using the cattails as cover. He pulls his bow, nocks an arrow—lets it fly.</p><p>
  <em>Hit.</em>
</p><p>He collects his catch, debates heading back. There’s still another hour, hour and a half of daylight, though, so he keeps walking, keeps hunting. By the time he’s back at the garage, it’s dusk, and he has a respectable meal strung over his shoulder.</p><p>“You know how to fix a duck?” he asks them as he steps inside, voice still thin.</p><p>Jefferson steps away from the car. He’s uncharacteristically dirty, streaks of oil and grease staining his hands and arms, hair pulled away from his face and pulled back. His shirt is sweat-soaked from the oppressive heat inside, rendered near see-through as it clings to his chest.</p><p>“Fuck, I’ll take gutting shit over cars any day,” Jefferson swears, wiping his hands off on a rag that’s so oil-stained already it does the opposite of cleaning; the fact makes him scowl.</p><p>Frustrated, he throws the rag down and stalks away. Madison, still leaning over the car—equally dirty, if not dirtier, Hamilton notes—makes a sound that could mean anything without so much as looking up. The snub pricks Hamilton’s ego.</p><p>"Good to see you too, Madison," he says, irritated at himself for the bitterness in his own voice.</p><p>Madison stills, but he doesn't look up<em>—</em>still deciding to cut Hamilton out of the conversation, it seems.</p><p>Jefferson's mouth twists as he looks between the two of them, and his eyes fall onto the duck, the rabbit, the two squirrels slung over Hamilton's shoulder, and he takes the out.</p><p>“Come on—let’s go outside. Maybe you’ll finally fuckin’ let me teach you how to skin them.”</p><p>They leave Madison working, step out into the fresh air. Jefferson sighs, shrugs off his sweat-soaked shirt, shoulders rolling as he recovers from spending the day hunched over the car.</p><p>Hamilton looks away.</p><p>“Hamilton,” Jefferson says once they’ve walked a safe distance away from the garage. “Don’t give him a hard time.”</p><p>“What are—”</p><p>“Look, neither of us had families.”</p><p>Hamilton freezes, anger licking hot up the back of his neck.</p><p>“And I don’t know anything about yours beyond that, and I sure fuckin’ hope your family wasn’t as shitty as mine. But that was one thing we never had to worry about.”</p><p>“What are you saying?” Hamilton asks, stiff.</p><p>“I'm saying that, earlier, he just needed to talk it out with someone who knew who he was talking about. He didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, alright?”</p><p>“He didn’t fucking hurt my—”</p><p>“Oh, he didn’t? Good. Then it won’t be a problem for you not to be a jackass.”</p><p>Hamilton fumes, and Jefferson, apparently aware he acted like a dick, backtracks with a sigh. He lays a hand on his shoulder until Hamilton looks over.</p><p>“Look,” Jefferson says. “I’m asking you as your friend. Don’t give him a hard time about it.”</p><p>Hamilton stiffens under Jefferson’s hand, and he wants to shake the touch off. But Jefferson’s expression is unusually earnest, searching, almost pleading.</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t know what to say. He looks down the things he's caught in his hands.</p><p>“Well, are you going to show me how to skin these or not?”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Dinner is good—as good as it gets. Fresh meat, seasoned as best as they can get, paired with roasted cattails from the pond. But they eat in silence, the air thick.</p><p>At last Hamilton asks Madison a question.</p><p>And, in an instant, the tension over them dissipates, gives way to conversation.</p><p>During a break in the conversation, Hamilton catches Jefferson looking at him, eyes grateful, lips pulled into a smile Hamilton hasn't quite seen before.</p><p>             </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Next to Samuel Adams, Hercules hangs, feet dangling limp above the ground.</p><p>Hamilton looks down and sees cast iron cuffs around his wrists. To the side of the platform, faces he know stare up blankly, eyes unseeing, glazed over, grey.</p><p>Maniacal and unhinged, the King’s laughter rings through the air.</p><p>And Hamilton shudders awake.</p><p>He lays on the couch a few minutes, eyes closed, debating whether it’s worth it to try to fall asleep a second time. The sound of distant metallic clanging makes the decision for him, and he swings his feet off the couch, standing with a hand scrubbed over his face.</p><p>He finds Madison in the garage, elbow-deep in the car’s innards. He’s single-mindedly focused, and he greets Hamilton with nothing more than a half-second glance before returning to work.</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t want to help him—but he wants to go back to sleep less. Figures he could use the distraction. He slides up beside Madison, looking into the machinery.</p><p>“Need help?”</p><p>Madison looks back up for half a second.</p><p>“Do you know what a wrench is?”</p><p>“Odds I do are two-to-one.”</p><p>“Well, you’ll be at least as helpful as Thomas.”</p><p>A moment later, Madison steps away, scrubs a frustrated hand over his face. Oil smears in a greasy streak across his cheek, but his shoulders are so stiff with aggravation that Hamilton doesn’t feel inclined to tell him. Thankfully, Madison’s quick to wipe his face clean with a rag. He looks down at the dark smear on the rag with tired eyes. He sighs, his shoulders sinking, his veneer cracking.</p><p>Madison looks up at him, lost in thoughts that take uncomfortably long to break free from.</p><p>“You know, I can tell when you’re not asleep,” Madison at last tells him.</p><p>“I—what?” Hamilton asks, taken aback.</p><p>“It’s obvious when you’re awake. You breathe differently, for one.” Madison pauses a moment, seems to weigh his next words carefully. “I’m sorry you and I both slept poorly last night.”</p><p>Madison knows, then.</p><p>Knows that Hamilton saw him awake, saw him looking at the ripped-out photo.</p><p>Hamilton’s conversation with Jefferson earlier suddenly falls into context.</p><p>“I talked to Thomas about my family earlier,” Madison says, even though Hamilton’s pieced it together. “I’ve been thinking about them a long while now.”</p><p>“Oh,” Hamilton says, shifting. “Do you know what…?”</p><p>Madison is thinking again, only half-speaking to Hamilton.</p><p>“It was hard enough to simply survive those first few months. I had to keep myself going if we were going to make it,” Madison answers, avoiding eye contact. Silence stretches on a few moments. And, finally, with a quiet voice subdued by guilt, he admits, “And I was afraid.”</p><p>Jefferson would know what to say—but he probably said exactly that earlier, so the burden on Hamilton’s shoulders is lighter than it would be otherwise.</p><p>Which is good—Hamilton has no idea what to say.</p><p>Jefferson was right; he had no family left to lose. His father left long before the outbreak, and his mother was a loss he had nearly a decade to come to terms with. Other family was otherwise irrelevant or dead.</p><p>Madison focuses on his hands, watching carefully as he disassembles some car part.</p><p>“Some of them are dead,” Madison finally says, careful grief in his words. “I would be delusional to think otherwise. But the uncertainty is… difficult.” His gaze fixes at some point inside the car, but his mind is elsewhere. “Not every burden bearing down on me is within my control. But this one is.”</p><p>He thinks a moment longer, then looks to Hamilton, the same calmness from earlier plain on his face—only this time, Hamilton can label it for what it is: acceptance.</p><p>“I’ve made peace with never seeing them again. Even if some of them have survived this long, I wouldn’t have a hope of finding half of them. Several of my siblings were abroad at the beginning of the outbreak. Even if I had surviving family members in the country, my presence nearby would endanger them. I refuse to do as much.”</p><p>Madison turns away, and, at once, Hamilton is reminded of something he yelled months ago, something that sounded like <em> the two of you are the last things I can still have. </em></p><p>The simple truth of the matter is that what he said is true of all of them.</p><p>It’s the end of the world, and this is what they have: a bounty on their heads, blood on their hands, and futures as dead as so many of the people they used to love.</p><p>(And for two of them: each other. Hamilton substitutes love for what his life means—what his life <em> has </em>to mean, what the impossibility of the immunity running through his veins means for the world).</p><p>“I only want to know who I can mourn for certain. Closure,” Madison finishes, and though the composure in his voice is impenetrable, there’s something distinctly human about the way he won’t quite make eye contact. “Thomas and I discussed it at length, and, once the car’s fixed, we’ll head to Montpelier.”</p><p>Hamilton takes the car part Madison hands him, moves it aside.</p><p>“Do you want to, uh, talk about them?” Hamilton reluctantly asks.</p><p>“Not at this moment,” he says after a long time. “I’d like to keep my hands busy. But given that I have nearly no idea what I’m doing, I could use your help,” he says with a tip of his head towards the thick Escalade manual splayed open on the windshield. “And,” he says after a moment, in a hesitant, quiet way that could be an afterthought<em>—</em>but isn't. “I enjoy your company.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>There are times that are good, bad, nothing at all, something in-between.</p><p>And there are times when Madison is in a good mood, fingers tapping melodies against whatever surface’s closest, times where he sometimes smiles off at some distant point and calls Hamilton by his first name.</p><p>There’s something about the way he says it that catches Hamilton off-guard every time.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Days wear into weeks.</p><p>They work their way through the owner’s manual, circling every issue that could be at fault and crossing out the things that they can eliminate. It’s tiresome, boring work; they take shifts.</p><p>One of them spends the day hunting, scavenging, cooking, cleaning, collecting and sanitizing water. The other two spend their day hunched over the engine trying not to lose fingers to the car’s innards, sweating and filthy by the day’s end. They cannibalize what parts they can from the old truck, but nothing makes the Escalade's engine turn over; Jefferson spends half a week tracking down somewhere they can find replacements for the growing list of parts they’re suspicious of.</p><p>It’s so, so damn hot. There’s a creek half a mile south, and an hour before sunset, the three of them trudge exhausted to the water, spend the rest of the evening scrubbing away grime—but it almost doesn’t matter. By the time they make it back to the garage, they’ve already broken a sweat. Even though they're all used to the heat<em>—</em>what with Jefferson and Madison being southerners and Hamilton growing up in the Carribean<em>—</em>it slowly starts to wear them down.</p><p>Madison and Jefferson can’t stand it after a while, and they move their bed rolls two feet apart—never mind that no matter how far away they start, they find the other in sleep, wake up with arms and legs tangled together. Hamilton, meanwhile, wilts on the couch on the other side of the back room, passes time staring at the ceiling between brief bouts of sleep.</p><p>Madison sleeps better these days, the promise of closure apparently enough.</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t.</p><p>“I haven’t heard any more news,” Hercules tells them through the radio. “Only rumors—the Sons are supposedly moving into West Pennsylvania. Hard to tell if the news’ real or not, though.”</p><p>Jefferson doesn’t sleep that night—neither does Madison or Hamilton. Instead, the three of them crowd over the chess board, playing until dawn.</p><p>“Fucking finished,” Jefferson announces to them one evening, throwing the owner’s manual on the table, where it clatters with a <em> thunk </em>so heavy Madison has to scramble to save his tea from tipping over. “The parts shop—mechanic shop? Whatever. The place with car parts I tracked down last week is a dozen miles away—close enough to keep it as a day trip if we haul ass.”</p><p>“So twelve hours in the sun, huh?” Hamilton dryly asks. “Sounds fun.”</p><p>“Yeah. I want to stab myself too." Jefferson's laugh is more like a sigh. "Welcome to the apocalypse.”</p><p>On foot, it’s a four-hour walk—a viciously awful walk.</p><p>The Georgian sun beats down, and the humidity is so oppressive each breath feels like Hamilton may as well be taking it underwater. They haven’t even made it fifty steps away from the garage before sweat runs in sticky rivulets down the back of his neck. Jefferson pulls up his hair after half a mile—the true heat index indicator. He’s wearing the ugly fucking sunglasses Hamilton found months ago in Maryland, but it’s too hot for him to complain about them, too hot to hold a conversation.</p><p>“Fuck, I miss air conditioning,” Hamilton swears after a few miles when they pause to rest under a cluster of trees. He draws in an overheated gasp, swipes a sweaty arm over his equally sweaty brow.</p><p>“Preaching to the choir, Hamilton,” Jefferson says, gratefully taking the handkerchief Madison passes him to dab at his brow. “How the fuck people lived down here before central cooling is beyond me.”</p><p>“Less global warming?” Hamilton wryly suggests.</p><p>Madison murmurs a swear as he finishes off his water bottle, shaking the last few drops loose. Wordlessly, Jefferson pulls out his own and passes it over.</p><p>“I miss tap water,” Madison mourns, joining the conversation after a sip that’s surely much smaller than the one he’d like to take. He passes the bottle back, heaves out an exasperated sigh. “And refrigeration,” he sighs again. “I’m sick of lukewarm wine.”</p><p>“Mm. What I wouldn’t give for a margarita right now.”</p><p>“It’s ten in the morning, Thomas,” Madison dryly points out.</p><p>“So it’s a brunch margarita.”</p><p>An infected shambles into their path. They all watch, almost impartial as its neck swivels and its eyes latch onto them. It cries out, charges them. Madison pushes upright, lets it close in—then lashes out with a kick to its knee, sends it sprawling to the ground. In an instant, Jefferson descends, buries a knife to the hilt in the back of its skull. As always, the attack is fluid, seems to come almost as easily as breathing.</p><p>“We should get moving,” Madison says, his eyes moderately more alert as he scans the surrounding trees. “Could be others nearby.”</p><p>Jefferson clicks his agreement and drops to search the body. He comes up with nothing but an old Blackberry. He turns the cellphone over in his hands, his face briefly twisting at some memory Hamilton’s not privy to. Jefferson tosses the device onto the infected’s chest after a moment; Madison lays a careful, comforting hand on his shoulder, apparently already well-aware of what Jefferson’s thinking of.</p><p>Wordlessly, they move on.</p><p>“You know who I’ve been thinking about lately,” Jefferson says after another mile—but the weight to his words has shifted, grown heavy. His eyes are distant now, voice only half-present.</p><p>Madison looks back, compassion written in his eyes.</p><p>“Who?” he asks, even though he has to know already.</p><p>Jefferson loses himself in though and, finally, he just shakes his head.</p><p>“No one. Forget it.”</p><p>After a moment, Madison concedes, letting the conversation go—but his strides slow down until Jefferson catches up, fall into step beside him. Their hands brush together. Madison’s fingers lace with his. His thumb brushes over Jefferson’s knuckles, quiet comfort: <em>I'm here</em>.</p><p>Hamilton trails behind.</p><p>He’s not sure why, but his teeth taste sour against his tongue.</p><p>            </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Hours later, the red façade of the car parts shop finally comes into view.</p><p>Hamilton prays for a reprieve from the heat—but the inside of the store is just as hot as outside. It’s a little shadier out of the direct sun, at least. The three of them stand at the entrance a moment; Hamilton takes a few forward, loudly knocks over a display by the door. They wait to see what’ll be drawn out by the sound, guns in hand—silence. Nothing moves. Nothing shrieks. All good signs.</p><p>“Well, shit,” Jefferson drawls once they’re satisfied that they’re alone. He turns sideways, eyes a ceiling-high stacks of tires. “Since we’re already replacing half the Escalade’s shit, when was the last time we had a tire change?”</p><p>“Given that you purchased it in 2011, I’m guessing never,” Madison wryly replies. “Can you find the right tires?”</p><p>“Well, I can read,” Jefferson replies as he raises up the Escalade’s owner manual—now their unofficial Bible, apparently. Jefferson huffs a fond laugh Madison’s way. “I’ve got it, Jemmy.”</p><p>Madison’s mouth twitches, just as fond.</p><p>“I’m going to look around,” Hamilton says, turning away from the two of them.</p><p>He pokes through the store, digging through car things he doesn’t understand. There’s nothing of interest in the main room, so he wanders through the store until he finds a locked door that looks like it leads somewhere promising. He tries the knob; it turns, but the door doesn’t budge, is jammed shut by something on the other side.</p><p>“Jefferson!” Hamilton calls, scowling when the man meanders over as slowly as he pleases.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Help me get this open.”</p><p>Jefferson heaves a dramatic sigh, but braces his shoulder against the door beside Hamilton, drawls out a three-count, and then the two of them heave forward. Something on the other side of the door screeches, giving way—and the door abruptly flies open.</p><p>The two of them stumble ungracefully forward, thrown off-balance. Hamilton barely keeps from going face-first into the ground, and—</p><p><em>“Fuck!”  </em>is all he gets out before he’s slammed from the side, smashed to the ground.</p><p>He barely gets his hands up in time to keep his face from getting ripped off, swear as an infected snaps its teeth inches from his face. He can’t get a hand free to grab his knife unless he lets go and risks the infected chomping his goddamn—</p><p>Jefferson’s boot crunches across the side of the infected’s head with a <em> squelch, </em>kicking it off from Hamilton. The muzzle of Jefferson’s shotgun explodes—like Hamilton’s fucking eardrums—and blood showers his face. Hamilton groans, eyes screwing shut, nauseated by the dark, sticky fluid dripping down into his hair.</p><p>“We’re good!” Jefferson shouts over his shoulder; Madison’s undoubtedly halfway across the shop already. “One just fuckin’ ambushed us. We’re good.”</p><p>He offers Hamilton a hand; Hamilton takes it, letting Jefferson pull him back to his feet.</p><p>“Good?” Jefferson checks in, concern grazing his face.</p><p>“Yeah.” Hamilton looks away. “You just fucking blasted out my ears, ‘s all.”</p><p>Apparently, Hamilton bitching at him is a marker of his good health, because Jefferson snorts. The concern melts off his face, and a smirk skims over his lips as tips back on his heels.</p><p>“Oh, so you’d rather I’d’ve let it take off your nose?”</p><p>“I’d rather you use a fucking handgun like a normal person,” Hamilton retorts, using his sleeve to wipe off the dark blood on his face. “And <em> I’d’ve?” </em>he complains after Jefferson when the man leaves with a scoff and a roll of his eyes. “What kind of shit Southern slang is that?”</p><p>“Please don’t lump Southerners all into one category,” Madison’s voice calls from elsewhere close in the store. “I, for one, respect linguistics.”</p><p>“Y’all’d’ve saved enough air to make up for all that griping if you talked like I do,” Jefferson replies, laughing at his own joke as if he can sense the rude gesture Hamilton makes.</p><p><em> Asshole, </em>Hamilton thinks as he turns back to the room, even though his mouth threatens to twist up. He spares a look at the infected Jefferson took out; there’s nothing left of its face but something pulpy and syrupy that, sickeningly, reminds him of crushed raspberries before he tears his eyes away.</p><p>(Sometimes, Hamilton is a little jealous of Jefferson’s shotgun).</p><p>The rest of the room is half-storage, half-office space. Picked clean—nothing worth taking.       </p><p>In the other room, quiet French twines through the air.</p><p>
  <em> “Are you alright?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Why wouldn’t I be? Other than, you know. The fact that the whole world’s fucked. But I’m over that.” </em>
</p><p><em>Too</em> <em>airy</em>, Hamilton thinks. The more upset Jefferson is, the brighter he speaks, as if the higher the pitch of his voice goes, the better he'll feel.</p><p><em> “Thomas,” </em>Madison says back, quiet, beseeching.</p><p>Something like a sigh echoes through the room.</p><p><em> “You know what I’m upset over! I never got the chance to say goodbye,” </em> Jefferson’s voice goes on, gradually tightening with anger, words spilling out faster. <em> “And, fuck, I know hardly anyone else did either—but I don’t </em> have <em> a place to go to make peace with it. They’re just fucking gone, and I just have to live with that the rest of my goddamn—” </em></p><p>Anger swells in his voice, and something metallic shakes and <em> pings </em>loud like it’s been kicked.</p><p><em> “I’m sorry,” </em> Jefferson says a moment later, anger sapped, leaving only exhaustion behind. <em> “Don’t think I don’t want to go Montpelier if that’s what you want to do. I’ll do whatever you need. And I don't mean to sound fuckin' jealous or anything—fuck. I'm sorry. </em><em>I just… I just don’t want to think about everyone else. I don't... I don't want to talk about it."</em></p><p>A silence wears on, seconds ticking away.</p><p>
  <em> “Alright. But if you do, you know—” </em>
</p><p><em> “I know, Jemmy.” </em> He sighs. <em> “What did I do to deserve you?” </em></p><p>
  <em> “I love you.” </em>
</p><p><em> “Know that too.” </em> A pause—a sigh that’s just a little brittle, then, as always, a sound that’s a little less frail. <em> “I love you too.” </em></p><p>Hamilton’s fingers curl around the photo strip in his pocket.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They get what they’ve listed: oil for a change, a new car battery, another spark plug, half a dozen other car bits and parts that they’ve listed as suspects. It adds up: their packs are heavy, stiff on their backs when they leave. It makes the trip back worse, but the hottest part of the afternoon is finally over. They make idle conversation as they go, debate mundane, safe things—art, weather, food.</p><p>“Personally,” Jefferson says as the garage comes into sight, “I prefer Picasso’s earlier—”</p><p>Hamilton registers the strange, weak little sound Jefferson makes before he registers the gunshot—but then the sound echoes vicious and furious in his ears, joined by others.</p><p>Jefferson lists forward, his leg falling out from underneath him—and Madison rushes to catch him, already hauling ass towards the garage, towards cover. Hamilton shoots wildly, just trying to force their attackers into cover. He dives to the door, feels his knee slam hard against the ground, yanks the garage door up a foot. Jefferson hits the ground beside him, never stops moving, rolls inside, holds it open while Hamilton and Madison scramble inside.</p><p>The door hits the ground with a metallic shriek as they scramble away, backs flat to the ground. Bullets pierce through the sheet metal, leaving sunlight-puncture holes shining down.</p><p>“Mother<em> fucking </em> ambushing <em> shit </em>-eating bastards—” Jefferson swears, and then he looks down.</p><p>His face goes grey.</p><p>There’s blood. Jesus fucking Christ, there’s so much fucking—</p><p>“Hamilton!” Madison yells, shoving bullets into his revolver’s cylinder as he stumbles to his feet, rushes towards the Escalade as he shoots back, covering them. “Get him away from the fucking door!”</p><p>Hamilton scrambles to his feet, stays low, gets behind Jefferson and hooks arms under his shoulders, dragging him away. A sickly red streak follows his left leg as they go. He finally makes it around to the front of the Escalade, props Jefferson up against the bumper.</p><p>“Goddamn it, goddamn it, goddamn it<em>—</em>” Madison swears over and over, eyes scouring the machinery.</p><p>Something hits a door hard—<em>t</em><em>he back room, </em>Hamilton realizes, on his feet in an instant.</p><p>He makes it to the doorway just in time to see the door buckle, give way, people rushing inside—he lifts his pistol and shoots. The first doesn’t even see him—just goes down with a caved-in temple, a cavity through their skull. The second is faster, luckier—aims and shoots, forces Hamilton to duck back behind the doorway.</p><p><em> One two three four five six— </em>a pause.</p><p>Six shots in the chamber.</p><p>Hamilton still has two in his, and the second cuts a path through the shooter’s stomach.</p><p>He reloads, keeps his pistol trained at the busted-doorway—but they’ve learned their lesson, fallen back. He can hear shouts outside, hear the person he shot through the stomach screaming, piercing, crying. <em> Shut the </em> fuck <em> up, </em> Hamilton viciously thinks, he’s just trying to think, think over the blood coating his hands—Jefferson’s blood, Jesus <em> Christ</em>, holy <em> shit </em>—and he aims his gun again.</p><p>The screaming stops; Hamilton can think again.</p><p>He thinks they’re fucked.</p><p>Jefferson’s hit. Their car is half-disassembled, and even if they get it reassembled, they still don’t know what repair’s the one they need. They’re trapped in a garage with no idea of how many people ambushed them, no idea how well-armed they are, how far they’ll go to take them alive or dead. They shot Jefferson in the leg, sure, but maybe they meant to shoot him in the<em>—</em></p><p>“Hamilton!” Madison shouts. “I need you here—<em>now!” </em></p><p>“We’re fucking exposed back here! If I move, we’re gonna get shot in the back!”</p><p>“Give me a damn second,” Jefferson grits out, and Hamilton turns in time to see him pull himself up with the Escalade’s bumper.</p><p>“Thomas," Madison starts to protest, rattled.</p><p>“I can hold a gun,” Jefferson interrupts, eyes screwed tightly shut as he sucks in rushed breaths. “And I’m not gonna stop shooting until they’re all fucking dead, or I am,” he laughs. “Whichever’s first.”</p><p>“You’re not going to die,” Madison tells him, desperate, his usual poise lost. “We’ll be fine, Thomas. It’ll be alright.”</p><p>“Of we course will be,” Jefferson reassures him, forcing a smile more pained than any Hamilton’s ever seen.</p><p>He leans forwards, presses his forehead against Madison’s. The touch seems to ground Madison—grounds Jefferson just as much, melts some of the agony off his face. He breathes out, and his eyes are focused, single-minded when they open. And then he limps—which is too generous a word, really—towards Hamilton, nearly crashes into the wall, leans heavily against it.</p><p>“I’ve got it,” Jefferson tells Hamilton, voice thick. “Go help him.”</p><p>The shooting through the garage doors has at least stopped, and now the entire world seems silent, save for the breathing—Jefferson’s hitched, choked-off inhales, Hamilton and Madison’s heaving gasps for air. Madison’s in motion, pulling things from his pack—he yanks Hamilton’s off his shoulders, goes to carefully ease off Jefferson’s, starts rifling through those too.</p><p>“Did you see how many?” Hamilton asks, strategies playing out in his mind.</p><p>Before Madison even answers, he’s around to the trunk of the Escalade, popping the hatch, dragging out the crate of empty glass bottles he so painstakingly saves. Madison catches on instantly, swipes up a container of oil, grabs their siphon, starts siphoning gas out of the Escalade’s tank. They fill bottles, douse rags, line half a dozen unlit Molotovs along the front of the car.</p><p>“Five, at least,” Madison says as they work. “I couldn’t get a good—goddamn it. They knew we were here—<em>Christ. </em>”</p><p>“I got two, but there's more left. Probably lots more.”</p><p>“Have you got a plan?”</p><p>“Part of one.”</p><p>“As do I.”</p><p>Hamilton glances over his shoulder every minute to Jefferson. Jefferson’s pale, sweaty, almost certainly in shock by now. The front of his leg is still bleeding sluggishly, but the back isn’t—no exit wound. The bullet is still lodged somewhere in his leg, then, staunching the worst of the bleeding.</p><p>Good, because he’s not bleeding out while they’re surrounded by fuck-knows-how-many people, but bad because it already seemed like so much fucking blood, and Hamilton’s already—</p><p>“We know you’re in there,” a deeply Georgian voice calls out.</p><p>Hamilton’s eyes snap to the front of the garage to the voice on the other side of the sheet metal doors. Immediately, his hands finds his pistols, levels it in the voice’s direction.</p><p>“Look, we know at least one of you’s hit. Y’all already got two of ours. No need for anyone else to get hurt. Come out with your hands up. It’s nothing personal. Nothing against ya—I was for the country, you know. Fuckin’ hated the King. But it is what it is. Some of us got families to take care of.”</p><p>“Awful hard to take care of your family when you’re dead,” Jefferson at last speaks up, voice iced-over.</p><p>“Counteroffer,” Madison seamlessly builds off of him. “And listen carefully, because I’ll offer it exactly once: cut your losses. Leave us be and walk away.”</p><p>“Look,” the person sighs, weary. “You know we can’t do that. Fuckin’ bandits running us over every other damn day of the week, and all the infected keep wanderin’ up from Atlanta. Got hordes passing through three times a month.”</p><p>“Tough fucking luck,” Hamilton says, voice flat. Jefferson and Madison are having one of their silent conversations, speaking with barely-there nods, meaningful expressions, the occasional hand motion. Hamilton is surprised that he picks up some of it—enough of it, in fact. He hesitates, then inflects as much fear into his voice as he can manage. “Shit—look. The one you got earlier. He’s bleeding bad.”</p><p>Madison and Jefferson watch him, eyes narrowed. Hamilton tips his head towards the voice, keeps his gun raised—<em>trust me. </em></p><p>And they do.</p><p>“We got a vet,” comes the response a second later, coaxing, plying. “Farm animal vet, but he can patch him up just fine if you come out. People and animals, they ain’t that different.”</p><p>“I mean—Jesus<em>. </em> Just… promise. You won’t shoot? <em> ” </em></p><p>“Hamilton, what are you—” Madison cuts in, protesting, panicked: a nice touch.</p><p>“What other fucking choice do we have?”</p><p>They pause—Madison gives in.</p><p>“Fuck. Fuck!Fine.”</p><p>Hamilton reaches forward, curls his fingers around a wrench.</p><p>“Okay,” Hamilton says. “Shit. Just don’t shoot. We’re coming out. Over there, on the right.”</p><p>He hefts the wrench up, aims at the far end of the shop—then throws hard, cringes at the vicious sound of metal striking metal. There’s not even a moment’s hesitation.</p><p>Brutal, violent gunfire explodes, shreds through the door, spraying everything in its path. Automatic weapons fire mercilessly until they click empty, and then other guns take over. Hamilton can't even count how many.</p><p>Even twenty yards too far right, Hamilton hits the floor out of habit, drags himself around the other side of the Escalade with his elbows.</p><p>Ten seconds later, the carnage stops.</p><p>Silence.</p><p>“Fuck,” a woman’s voice says—laughs, relieved. “Think we got ‘em.”</p><p>When the door’s pulled open and the three of them open fire, Hamilton doesn’t even hesitate.</p><p>They don’t get them all—the others notice the absence of bullet-ridden bodies too fast, certainly notice that the first few of their numbers are missing half their heads a second after entering—but it’s something.</p><p>“Here’s an idea,” Jefferson calls out once the shooting, the screaming’s stopped. He cuts off a second, grimaces hard, finishes with gritted teeth. “If you’re gonna <em> fu</em>—gonna fuckin’ pretend you’re comin’ in peace, maybe don’t <em> maim </em>someone first!"</p><p>“You’re going to have to come out eventually, you goddamned bastards,” someone snarls back. “Or don’t—make your little fucking boyfriend sit and watch you bleed out.”</p><p>Murderous is too kind a word for how Madison looks. Jefferson laughs, angry and low in his throat.</p><p>None of them say what Hamilton knows, what they all must know: they’ve thinned out the numbers of the people outside, but their odds are just as bad. They’re still fucking surrounded. The car’s still broken—and if they can’t get it fixed, they’re still irrevocably fucked. Trapped.</p><p>And Jefferson—the second Madison isn’t looking at him, his face is agonized, posture hunched, every ounce of his energy directed into staying standing, staying alert.</p><p>There are no good options—only worse options.</p><p><em>You</em> <em>should leave them, </em> something hungry and cold and yellow-eyed and desperate to stay alive murmurs in his mind. <em> They would leave you to save the other. </em></p><p>They wouldn’t.</p><p>Maybe they would’ve one, but now they’re friends.</p><p>A team.</p><p>They wouldn’t.</p><p>(Would they?)</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton looks up in between loading bullets into a rifle.</p><p>Jefferson leans out of the side door of the Escalade, and he and Madison talk.</p><p>“Don’t do this,” Jefferson tells Madison, shaking his head. “I’m fucking begging you, Jemmy. Don’t do this. Don’t do something where I can’t be right there with you.”</p><p>Madison’s hand cups the side of Jefferson’s face.</p><p>“I love you, Thomas. No matter what.”</p><p>“Don’t say that. Not now. Feels too fucking final.”</p><p>“It’s not final,” Madison promises, at last pulling away. “I only wanted to remind you.”</p><p>Madison turns to Hamilton, and he takes the rifle’s Hamilton’s loaded, weighs it in his hands, takes an experimental look down the sight, then, satisfied, he looks to Hamilton.</p><p>“Are you ready?”</p><p>
  <em> No. </em>
</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Madison goes first; Jefferson catches Hamilton as he tries to follow.</p><p>“Hey.” There’s a falter, a pause where Jefferson doesn’t seem quite sure what to say. “Stay alive.”</p><p>Hamilton looks to him, hesitantly lays his hand flat over Jefferson’s.</p><p>“Yeah. You too.” Throat dry, he lets his hand fall away. “And stop fucking getting shot.”</p><p>Dry and bitter, Jefferson laughs.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Madison stares up into the barrel of a gun, posture defiant, eyes angry.</p><p>“Go to hell,” he says.</p><p>It doesn’t save him.</p><p>“Wake up, Alexander,” Madison’s voice murmurs—from somewhere other than the body on the ground. “You’re having a nightmare. You’re alright.” A pause. “I’m here.”</p><p>Hamilton’s eyes flicker open. It's late in the night now, and it's silent, but he can’t get the image out of his head: Madison, toeing the line to the Other Side.</p><p>It goes differently in his dreams every time, ends the worst possible way. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The way it went is only marginally better.</p><p>Their plan is the best they can do with three trapped people, one of whom can barely walk without collapsing, can only stand out of sheer force of will and adrenaline and shock.</p><p>The plan is contingent on luck. All plans are, to some extent, but this one especially so.</p><p>Hamilton and Madison creep towards the doorway of the backroom, backs pressed flat against the side of the wall. Hamilton looks over to Jefferson, standing in the Escalade, top-half standing through the sunroof. Madison tips his head—<em>go. </em></p><p>And Jefferson pulls the pin of a grenade, aims towards the far front of the shop, and throws.</p><p>The grenade arcs through the air; Hamilton and Madison rush into the backroom, put the wall between them before the explosion rattles the shop. Metal shrieks and creaks as things in the other room shift, collapse, give way. Shouts echo from outside, overlapping, confused.</p><p>“The fuck was—”</p><p>“Are they—”</p><p>“What was—”</p><p>Hamilton and Madison wait two beats—and then they’re through the back door, out into the open air, feet driving hard into the ground as they sprint.</p><p><em> Let it have worked, </em> Hamilton prays. <em> Let them be distracted. Let them have gone to look. </em></p><p>There’s gunfire, but it’s hard to tell where it’s coming from, if it’s coming from the trees ahead of them or from the front of the shop. It's impossible to know whether every step is going to be his last, if every breath Hamilton drags in is the final breath before the world goes dark. A shape ahead of them appears, stops mid-stride, turns, eyes going wide as it aims.</p><p>Hamilton slams into Madison, tackles, sends them tumbling hard and rough onto the ground. They tumble once, twice, roll, and then Madison’s rolling onto his feet, dragging Hamilton up and behind a thick tree. Wood splints and cracks behind them—but nothing punches through.</p><p>“Flank them,” Madison says, switching his rifle for his revolver. “I’ll cover you.”</p><p>Madison waits a beat, then swings around the side of the trunk, starts shooting—Hamilton makes a mad fifteen-foot dash to a tall clump of rocks, shoots blindly as he goes. He dives, comes into cover unscathed. It takes another twenty feet before he has an angle, forces them out of cover—and Madison, a snake lying in wait, takes them down with three shots squeezed in quick successfion.</p><p>They swing around, get the drop on another two—arms wrap around necks, knives cutting hard and fast across startled throats—and then there’s only the garage left.</p><p>Shotgun shells explode inside. Fire burns in thick, oily splotches from their improvised Molotovs. Bodies splay out across the floor, each in various stages of the throes of death, some screaming, some moaning, some glassy-eyed and silent. It hardly registers on him. All that registers is Jefferson’s shotgun.</p><p>That’s enough.</p><p>Madison hauls the rifle into his hand, takes aim. Hamilton does too—and they go, the two of them shooting from behind, Jefferson popping up from the sunroof to shoot, shooting through just-cracked-open windows, letting the Escalade’s armored walls, bulletproof glass absorb the hits.</p><p><em> Should’ve walked away, </em>Hamilton thinks as he and Madison sweep in from behind.</p><p>Bullets shriek, and, finally, silence takes over once more.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>  </p><p>Jefferson isn’t any worse, shielded by the Escalade. The driver’s side of the car’s been struck something like fifty times, patterns of bullets sprayed along the door, the windows. The bullets hardly dented the sides before they dropped flattened to the ground, but in the windows, they stay suspended, hovering halfway through the glass. At last, the Escalade looks like it belongs in the end of the world.</p><p>Hamilton walks forward, gun still raised, aiming at each body as he passes. The floor is slick with blood, oil, other fluids he couldn’t and doesn’t want to name. He and Madison aren’t much worse for the wear; the same can’t be said for everyone else, Jefferson included.</p><p>The Escalade door opens, and Jefferson stands, makes it all of two seconds before his leg buckles. Hamilton gets there first, just barely manages to keep him from hitting the floor. Madison is there half a beat later, murmuring in French: <em> it’s alright, you’re alright, we’re all alright. </em></p><p>“I’m fine,” Jefferson insists, trying again, managing to stand with an arm around Madison’s shoulder. “Just… just tired, Jemmy. Really tired. Fuck, c’mon. We gotta get outta here. Sounded like there’s others somewhere. Gonna notice their little group of mother—Jesus, that hurts<em>—</em>notice their motherfuckers didn’t come back.”</p><p>Hamilton retrieves the car manual, pops the Escalade’s hood.</p><p>“Page sixty-one,” Madison tells him, helping Jefferson to the front of the car. “Tear it out and give it to me.  “You work on replacing the spark plug—page thirty-three.”</p><p>“It’s gonna take, what, two hours? Three? And that’s just to <em> maybe </em>get the car working,” Hamilton protests, even though he’s equally aware that their others options as just as bad. They can’t get out of here on foot, not with Jefferson barely able to stand. There’s no guarantee they’ll be able to find another car anytime soon—and certainly not one like the Escalade. “What the fuck are we gonna do if we can’t get it to work?”</p><p>Madison doesn’t answer for a long moment. At last he looks up, face pressed into careful expressionlessness—to hide whatever he’s really thinking, Hamilton knows.</p><p>“Then we’ll find a contingency plan.”</p><p>A fucking politician answer—they’re in deep fucking shit, and Madison pulls out a goddamn politician answer on him. Hamilton’s eyes flash with anger.</p><p>“Contingency plan? Is that politician-speak for you have no fucking idea?</p><p>“Alexander,” Madison says in an all-too-placating tone, but Hamilton’s not hearing it.</p><p>“No fucking way.” He shakes his head. “That’s plan A. I’ll go look for another car—plan B.”</p><p>“Like hell,” Jefferson scoffs—agreeing with Madison, of course. “That’s a terrible idea.”</p><p>“What, are you gonna hobble over and stop me?” Hamilton shoots back, harsher than he means to.</p><p>“Oh!” Jefferson exclaims, acidic. “I’m sorry, mister fuckin’ bigshot. I didn’t realize you were immune to bullets too.” His hand falls to his leg as pain flashes over his face, but out of sheer force and spite, he spits, “Shit, I wish—wish that were me. Any wise fuckin’ words to share for us mortals?”</p><p>“Christ, I wouldn’t even know you’d been shot based off how much <em>bitching</em> you’re doing—"</p><p><em>“Shut up—</em>both of you!" Madison shouts, so forceful Hamilton damn-near drops his damn gun, has to scramble to catch it before it hits the ground, shoots another one of them. Even Madison looks a little surprised, but he recovers the fastest of the three of them, fixes his stare hard on Hamilton. “How will you find us again if we have to make a break for it while you’re gone?”</p><p>“You’ve seen the half-collapsed farmhouse about three miles west? If I can’t find you here, then I’ll meet you there.”</p><p>Madison and Jefferson exchange a long, silent conversation that ends with an angry shake of Jefferson’s head, Madison turning back to him with his mouth pressed tight.</p><p>“Be back in two hours, car or not.” He turns to Jefferson. “Alright, then. Thomas, are you able to—?”</p><p>“Yes,” Jefferson flatly interrupts, already flipping through the car’s manual.</p><p>One last time before Hamilton leaves, Jefferson looks up, lips twisted into a careful frown.</p><p>There’s something he wants to say—but he doesn’t.</p><p>Hamilton leaves.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The keys are missing from the first half dozen.</p><p>The next dozen are automatic shifts: dead batteries, nothing he can use to jump them.</p><p><em> Manual, </em>Jefferson’s voice echoes.</p><p>He finds one.</p><p><em> Push it downhill in neutral, </em>he said.</p><p>That’s hard, requires more energy than he has after how much abuse he’s taken that day—but he fucking does it, sprints after the car, dives through the open door.</p><p><em>Release</em> <em> the clutch, </em>Hamilton remembers.</p><p>
  <em> Please fucking work. God, please— </em>
</p><p>The engine sputters once, twice, three times before it roars to life.</p><p>            </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton stalls the engine so many times on the way back it’s a wonder the car even manages to keep running—but he’s never one to question an all-too-rare streak of luck.</p><p>He gets out a quarter mile before the garage, comes up quiet but fast, and he freezes.</p><p>Three, four, five people surrounded Madison, have dragged him out of the garage. On not entirely steady feet, Madison pushes himself off the ground, and even though the distance isn’t close enough to tell, Hamilton knows he’s hurt. And yet—a gun shoves itself in his face, and he looks up with an impassivity only he can pull off, something half as invested as boredom but twice as patronizing.</p><p>“Where are the other two?” one person demands, yanking Madison forward by the collar of his shirt.</p><p>Madison tips his head to the side, considers their words thoroughly.</p><p>“That depends,” Madison replies, “on whatever answer you’ll find most offensive.”</p><p>The side of a pistol cracks against the side of his face, and Madison goes down again. All that stops Hamilton from giving in to the red in his vision are the guns in the hands of the people above Madison, the lack of a gun in his. His teeth cut through his tongue as he assesses, thinks.</p><p>“Christ,” one of them protests, grabbing ahold of the other’s arm. “Calm down<em>—</em>we’re better than the bandits, aren't we? Isn’t the one enough?”</p><p>“Maybe you don't give a shit, but they killed our friends! My fucking brother!”</p><p>“Because you tried to kill them! That wasn’t the fucking plan! What the hell were they supposed to do?”</p><p>“We told them to walk away,” Madison sighs, shaking his head as he drags himself back onto his feet. His eyes are dark, focused, cold as his smile—<em>what the hell is he doing?</em>  “Unfortunately, some mistakes can’t be made a second time.”</p><p><em> Baiting them, </em>Hamilton realizes. As if on cue, there’s a flash of movement behind bushes behind them all. Jefferson and Madison have a play here, Hamilton understands. If he goes in too fast, too hot, he could send the whole damn thing sideways. There’s too many to take out before one pops a shot in Madison, too many to find any clear kind of opening unless Hamilton comes up with a good distraction.</p><p>Hamilton slips back to the old car, weighs his options, tracks down a heavy rock—and heaves it through the window. The alarm shrieks; Hamilton drops down, rolls under the bottom, lies in wait.</p><p>He hears confused shouts, but he’s too far away to quite make them out. Slowly, a pair of footsteps approach the car. Hamilton waits, hopes Jefferson—a rifle cracks<em>. </em></p><p>Hamilton doesn’t wait for a written invitation.</p><p>He takes one from Samuel Adams’ book, shoots for the ankles, goes for the head when the bodies hit the ground shrieking—and then there’s silence. He scrambles out. Runs. By the time he makes it back, Madison has his back on the ground, his hand still halfway to a discarded gun, his eyes staring up into the barrel of a faintly trembling gun. Jefferson stands a handful of yards away, frozen, terrified, rifle half-raised and still, still unseen.</p><p>The Georgian air is hot, thick.</p><p>Madison’s eyes flicker over to Hamilton, and the conflict fades out of them, replaced by peace.</p><p><em>Take</em> <em> care of each other, </em>Madison’s voice echoes in Hamilton’s mind, even though he says nothing at all. And then Madison looks away, manages an improbable, bright, white smile.</p><p>“Go to hell,” Madison says.</p><p>There’s no gunshot. For a moment, Hamilton merely thinks time’s frozen, but Madison’s eyes narrow after what has to be a few seconds, and the gun shakes harder.</p><p>“Please,” Hamilton pleads, and the person’s face turns to his.</p><p>Hamilton blanches, almost takes a step back.</p><p>It’s a fucking kid.</p><p>Hardly a fucking teenager, probably barely old enough to be in high school—if such a thing still existed. Wide, frightened, tired eyes meet his, skitter nervously between him and Madison.</p><p>“Please,” Hamilton repeats, tongue wetting his lips. When the kid doesn’t look away from him, he risks a slow, careful step forwards, raising his hands in a gesture of good will. “Look, we’ll go with you. Just don’t kill him. Please. He’s my friend. I—please. I’ll do what you want. Tell me what you want.”</p><p>“You’re Alexander Hamilton,” the kid says, voice surprisingly clear—and Hamilton places the voice, remembers it as the one that defended Madison earlier. “I know who you are. I remember you.”</p><p>“Because I punched Henry Laurens?” Hamilton guesses after a moment, forcing a friendly smile when he gets a hesitant nod in response. “Yeah. Glad that’s my fucking legacy.”</p><p><em> Better than nothing, </em> he tries to tell himself.</p><p>There’s a pause.</p><p>“There was a defector,” the kid says at last, eyes locked onto him, searching. “From the Sons of Liberty—Anarchy. Whatever. She passed through here. She said you were immune. That she saw the bite.”</p><p>“She might’ve.”</p><p>“The King said it was a lie. No one’s immune.”</p><p>Hamilton swallows, this throat dry.</p><p>“Well,” he gets out, voice croaking. “Lucky for me.”</p><p>Slowly, carefully, he lifts a hand to his collar and tugs it away. Nearly half a year on, the scar isn’t nearly as unsightly as it used to be—but it’s still impossible to hide without high collars, still distinctly visible, still a sight that he catches Madison staring at, faint vestiges of guilt splashed across his face. Some of the fresher bites are still more visible, but none are quite as striking as his first.</p><p>“You didn’t say it. Answer. Are you immune?” the kid asks, jamming the gun forward. “Don’t lie to me. Don’t fucking lie. Please.”</p><p>“Yes,” Hamilton says, eyes slipping shut. “I’m immune. I’ve been bit. More than once. Too many fucking times. I don’t know why. I don’t know why it’s me. I don’t know anything else. Please. I don’t know.”</p><p>Moments wear on into minutes. Jefferson’s gun stays frozen, but Hamilton won’t look at him from anything but the corner of his eye, lest the kid catch on, get spooked, shoot.</p><p>“My family all got infected,” the kid finally shares, voice fracturing. “But it was early. We didn’t know what would happen.”</p><p>The gun falters, nearly lowers. Hamilton’s scrutinized, searched—but, at long last, trusted.</p><p>“Okay.” The gun drops. “I believe you.”</p><p>And then the gun is aimed at him. There’s no real anger to the gesture—only a bone-deep exhaustion Hamilton knows all too well, never imagined he would see on someone so young.</p><p>“But promise me. Promise me that you’re gonna make sure they find a cure.” The kid swallows, eyes growing hard, accusing. “No matter what.”</p><p>Hamilton’s throat dries.</p><p>In crystal clarity, he sees Laurens’ smile flashes before his eyes.</p><p>He owes Laurens.</p><p>He owes everyone.</p><p>“I will,” Hamilton vows.</p><p>The kid looks between him and Madison one last time—still oblivious to Jefferson behind—and lowers the gun one last time, swallows hard, gives them both a final nod.</p><p>And away the kid walks—away from the garage, away from them all.</p><p>“Where are you going?”</p><p>“Away from here. I knew I shouldn’t have stayed here. It’s better to be on your own.”</p><p>“Hold on, how old even are—”</p><p>“You should worry about yourselves.” Calm, polite, matter-of-fact—tired. “There are still others.”</p><p>There are people Hamilton thinks about sometimes. People from the old world, mostly. But, sometimes, there are people he’s met afterwards, after the outbreak, people that stick in his memory and refuse to leave, no matter how briefly they knew each other. Sometimes those people are hardly older than children, already quiet and solemn and world-weary—people that are as alone as he is.</p><p>(He’s not alone anymore, he tries to tell himself).</p><p>And, sometimes, Hamilton looks at himself in a mirror and those people are all he can think of.</p><p>But more often, he thinks of the people that he never met at all. The ones that didn’t make it. The ones that went out confused and afraid, infection swallowing their souls bit-by-bit until there was nothing left to spend. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Done,” Madison says an hour later, stepping away, bringing down the hood.</p><p>He slides into the driver’s seat, gets his keys, turns.</p><p>The car doesn’t start.</p><p>He tries again—nothing.</p><p>“Goddamn it,” Madison says, quiet, tired, covering his face with the crook of his arm.</p><p>The key clicks out, clicks in again, turns—silence.</p><p>Then, at last, the Escalade comes to life.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Madison stares up into the barrel of a gun, posture defiant, eyes angry.</p><p>“Go to hell,” he says.</p><p>And in Hamilton’s nightmares, it doesn’t save him.</p><p>But, that night, Madison wakes him up, and Hamilton has to remind himself that they’re all alive, that they’re alright. He and Madison are beside one another on the floor, splayed out on bedrolls. Above them on the sofa is Jefferson, half-asleep, half-passed out from a potent blend of pain, alcohol, and morphine. It’s near pitch-black inside, but Jefferson occasionally whines in his sleep, face pained.</p><p>It’s nothing near as bad as it was earlier.</p><p>The memory flashes crystal-clear before his eyes.</p><p>
  <em> “You’re doing so well, Thomas, it’s almost done. Right, Hamilton?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Fuck, I’m trying, but it’s stuck in—” Hamilton replies as he keeps trying to work out the bullet, his eyes wide, his hands slippery. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You should’ve just said you almost fucking had it!” Jefferson screeches, gripping Madison’s hand so tightly Hamilton’s distractedly worried it’ll break—but Madison doesn’t even flinch. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Madison sweeps the hair out of Jefferson’s face, smiles so calmly it’s somehow devastating. Hamilton back to the tweezers in his hand, tries to get ahold of the bullet yet again—still intact, thank god. Jefferson flinches, gasps, and he and Madison have to hold him down, keep him from thrashing. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “It’s almost out,” Madison tells him, pressing a kiss to his forehead, letting Jefferson crush his hand. “It’s alright, Thomas. It’s almost through. We’ve got you.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Oh, you should’ve let me drink more. Or given me more morphine—fuck not mixing them too much. I should’ve just—god, I’m gonna fuggin’—” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Jefferson outrights sobs, the sound so terrible Hamilton’s hand is half a second away from shaking, slipping, fucking something up. It was so much easier the times he did it on himself, so much easier, so much more detached, aloof. Jefferson sobs again, and the sound’s about to break Hamilton in half, shoot his nerves to shit. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “You’re alright,” Madison says—but when Hamilton looks up, this time Madison’s looking at him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Hamilton looks back down, exhales, forces his mind blank. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The bullet comes out. </em>
</p><p>“I’m not going back to sleep,” Hamilton tells him at last.</p><p>“Neither am I,” Madison says, quietly slipping out of his sleeping bag. “I found cleaning supplies earlier. I’m going to get the blood—to clean the interior of the Escalade.”</p><p>Hamilton slowly climbs to his feet, follows him out even though he’s not sure if he’s been invited to come along or not. With Madison, it’s tricky to tell. But he wants out of the room, and so he follows.</p><p>Madison stops at a supply closet, takes a few spray bottles, some rags. The bottles mostly have pictures of animals on them—but Hamilton supposes animals aren’t that different from people. Whatever washes out animal blood probably works just as well on human blood.</p><p>Around them, the animal hospital is silent.</p><p>
  <em>It's just past sunset when the Escalade stops outside a white-sign building that Jefferson reads, horrified, listing tipsily. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Are you serious? You’re gonna put me on a dog table?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Better this than a barn,” Madison replies, nerves frayed as he opens the backdoor, slings an arm under Jefferson’s shoulder. “Hamilton, here. Help me get him inside.” </em>
</p><p>The night air is much louder. Crickets and locusts chirp; bats swoop down in low overhead at the beam of the flashlight. The air is hot and thick, so damp that Hamilton swears he can see steam rise off the ground. The Escalade is parked around back, its bullet-ridden side facing them both.</p><p>“Guess he got his money’s worth out of the extra armor,” Hamilton tries to joke.</p><p>Madison says nothing, makes the kind of distracted sound that could mean anything at all.</p><p>He opens the backseat, which looks like the site of a low-budget slasher film. Jefferson’s leg bled sluggishly but reliably the entire ride, bled through bandage after bandage. Several bloody handprints mar the seats—but the leather is easy enough to clean. The carpet is what they really need to wash, lest it stain permanently. Neither of them wants that. The last thing either of them wants is another reminder of today<em>—</em>yesterday now, Hamilton supposes.</p><p>
  <em> “Where are we going?” Hamilton asks as Madison peels out of the garage, so fast that Hamilton’s sure they’re leaving tire tracks in their wake. Beneath his fingers, the bandage he’s pressing tightly against Jefferson’s leg is growing damp, blood beginning to well up between his fingers. “We need to—” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Jesus fuck,” Jefferson swears, head tipping back. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He shoves Hamilton away, reaches forward, fumbles out a bottle of wine from the seat in front of him. He tries once, twice, to uncork the bottle—Hamilton at last takes pity and does it for him. It says something that Jefferson doesn’t even snap at him for the assist, just lifts the bottle to his lips and drinks until it’s half-empty. He waits half a second—and when Hamilton presses harder, tries to slow the bleeding, he swears again and finishes the rest. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> By the time they’re even close to getting anywhere, Jefferson’s well on his way to drunk as fuck—but before he gets there, his head falls into his hands, wretched. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I almost killed a fucking fourteen-year-old today,” he says. “What goddamn kind of world is this?” </em>
</p><p>Hamilton didn’t have an answer to that then, and he doesn’t have one now.</p><p>He distracts himself from the question by helping Madison scrub, stains coming loose from threads of fabric beneath his fingers. A bleachy, lemony smell fills through the car—better than the smell of blood, Hamilton figures. Certainly better than the smell of death. Better than the smell of rot.</p><p>“Ah,” Madison murmurs, his face screwing up when Hamilton looks over. His hand is slipped between the seats of the Escalade, right where the seatbelt sinks into the depths of the car. He reaches deeper, curls his fingers around something and pulls. “I think there’s a bullet shell back here.”</p><p>Something small and metallic glints in the palm of Madison’s hand.</p><p>Hamilton realizes what it is before Madison—or at least before Madison reacts—and freezes.</p><p>Madison looks down at what’s in his hand for a very, very long time before a unique kind of pain starts to diffuse across his face, travels down his shoulders, crushes him whole.</p><p>Absolutely gutted, Madison stares down.</p><p>The band is silver, simple, inlaid with a single strip of understated pale purple gemstones.</p><p><em>You</em> <em>and me against the world, </em>the carving on the inside of the band reads.</p><p>“I should’ve known,” Madison quietly says to himself. “It was our anniversary.”</p><p>And it’s nothing to do with Hamilton, nothing he should care about—but he feels just as gutted. Madison laughs, but the sound is so brittle Hamilton’s afraid he’s a second away from breaking.</p><p>“Of course he would’ve proposed. Why else would he have remodeled Monticello? Or insisted Washington move the inauguration three days earlier? Or insisted that we take the evening off?”</p><p>Hamilton remembers that day—the last day.</p><p>The image comes to his mind before he can suppress it: Jefferson in that god-awful ugly purple suit, white teeth flashed in a brilliant smile. And now Hamilton sees the ring too—imagines it in Jefferson’s suit pocket, bringing new meaning to the smile, new meaning to their crumbled plans.</p><p>Madison looks up, sees Hamilton, seems to remember he’s not alone. He looks away.</p><p>His fingers tighten around the ring for a long moment—and then he returns it to its hiding place.</p><p>“Neither of us saw anything,” he flatly declares, his voice leaving no room for negotiation.</p><p>“You’re not—?”</p><p>“I <em> said </em> neither of us saw anything,” Madison repeats, harsher than he must mean to. A second later, his face skews with guilt, and he softens his words with a quiet, broken, “I don’t want to think about it.”</p><p>And there’s something so despondent in Madison’s face that Hamilton can’t help but to agree.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Sometimes, there are moments when Hamilton is looking when he shouldn’t be, moments when Madison is looking at Jefferson, and Hamilton knows all he can think about is the ring in the backseat.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>you thought i was done making you depressed? think again! link for the side fic--here you go: <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25270597">fic</a></p><p>anyways comment and kudos to feed an author. thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Teach Them How to Say Goodbye</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>quick reupload because i fucked up the publication date and ended up seven pages deep on the new fics page</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There must’ve been some point in Hamilton’s life where it wasn’t all hanging on by a stressed, frayed thread, but he can’t remember it. Distantly, he can almost grasp onto the feeling, but it slips between his fingers before he ever recalls what it felt like.</p><p>Jefferson’s leg heals slowly.</p><p>They’re low on food, low on water—have to trek four miles to get to the closest source they can find. They dose Jefferson with antibiotics to ward off infection before it can set in. Madison changes the bandages religiously. Between the two of them, they do every damn thing they can think of to stave off the worst possible outcomes.</p><p>In rooms at the far end of the animal hospital, he and Madison quietly convene.</p><p>“I’m concerned that he lost too much blood,” Madison is quick to worry. “And we have incompatible blood types. We need to make sure he eats well enough to replenish his stores.”</p><p>And so the two of them ration food. If they’re lucky hunting, the cuts of the meat they give Jefferson are the best: everything iron-laden, protein-heavy, vitamin-filled. If they’re not lucky, then they scavenge. If they can’t find anything to scavenge, then they cut into their emergency stores. Jefferson knows, of course, presses his lips tight every time Hamilton takes him a heavy plate and feeds him a line only an idiot would believe:</p><p>“We already ate.”</p><p>It takes Madison rubbing constant, worried circles idly into Jefferson’s shoulder just so he’s able to swallow. Hamilton has been nicked before, only really shot twice—once in the shoulder, the other time in the calf. It fucking hurt. He knows it hurts. He knows Jefferson is hurt.</p><p>Anxiety settles like lead. They’re only forty, fifty miles north of the car garage, but it’s hard to imagine moving Jefferson anywhere. Hard to imagine what they’ll do in an emergency. </p><p>Jefferson tries, once, to get up on his own—and he and Madison come running when snarling and swearing puncture the silence, find him five steps away from the sofa, flat on the floor, bandages wet and red around his leg. His breaths come hard and fast, eyes shut tight.</p><p>“Thomas,” Madison pleads, voice brittle with worry as he sweeps forward. Hamilton rounds on Jefferson from the other side, slinging an arm under his shoulders and helping him upright. “Christ, Thomas. Why didn’t you call for one of us?”</p><p>Jefferson shoves them both away the second he’s back on the sofa.</p><p>“Because I thought I could go take a piss without someone holding my fucking hand,” he snaps—but neither of them flinch, because Jefferson’s angry at himself, at the world, not at either of them. </p><p>Madison tries again to approach him, coming in slower, gentler—and, this time, Jefferson lets him. He resists an instant, but finally gives in, melts, leans into the cool hand on his face. He swears again, quiet, shakes his head, humiliated—an expression Hamilton struggles to place. Jefferson has never, not as long as Hamilton has known him, ever been humiliated. His overblown vanity, his too-high self-esteem protects him from those things.</p><p>But then again, maybe not.</p><p>“Jesus, I’m pretty fuckin’ pathetic, huh?” Jefferson asks as he looks into Madison’s eyes, pain painting his face vulnerable.</p><p>“You’re not. This is only a momentary—” Madison says at the same time as Hamilton shoots back a wry, derisive, “What, I just dug a bullet out of your leg and you wanna go run the Boston fucking Marathon? How about you take a goddamn break?” </p><p>Madison fixes him with a look—but Jefferson almost seems to smile. He maybe tries to, at any rate. He hasn’t genuinely smiled the last few days. </p><p>He says he’s fine, but he won’t smile—not even at Madison. Can’t do it, even when he tries. Jefferson says he’s fine, insists <em> oh, c’mon, quit fussing, I’ve had worse, I barely feel the fuckin’ thing</em>—and that’s how Hamilton knows just how bad it is. When has he ever known Jefferson not to act like a goddamn drama queen? <em> Whenever he knows how worried Madison is already, </em>Hamilton answers his own question.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton wakes up to a hissed breath, fight-or-flight kicking in. He shoots up, grabs his gun, lifts, eyes wide, adrenaline thrumming, heart racing—</p><p>“Put that goddamn thing down before I get shot a second time,” Jefferson’s voice chastises.</p><p>It takes him a moment before he can calm himself enough to do it. Disoriented, he glances around—remembers where he is. He’s been bedding down near Madison and Jefferson—an extra pair of hands only a few feet away in case of emergency.</p><p>It’s—<em>quiet conversations in the dark, I-love-yous before drifting off, Jefferson’s hand holding Madison’s even as the other man sleeps right below on the floor— </em>fine.</p><p>It’s fine.</p><p>Hamilton crawls out of his nest of blankets, blinks until his eyes adjust to the dark. He finds Jefferson with his eyes screwed shut tight on the sofa, his brow damp with sweat. There’s a sickening, sickening moment where Hamilton’s terrified that Jefferson’s come down with a fever, that the wound has somehow gotten infected anyways—but the man just gasps again. The amount of choked-pain in the sound convinces him it’s not.</p><p>“Where’s Madison?”</p><p>“Needed to go on a walk,” Jefferson says, sucking in another bitten-off breath. </p><p>He reaches out for the bottle of bourbon beside the sofa, takes a long, desperate drink: he won’t let them give him morphine any longer. Insists they need to save it. Madison had argued: <em> if not now, then when? </em>Hamilton, rarely, sided with Jefferson. </p><p>There are much, much worse things any of them can go through.</p><p>“I’ll go find him,” Hamilton says, moving towards the door—but Jefferson’s hand shoots out and curls tight around his arm.</p><p>“No. Stay.”</p><p>Hamilton knows Jefferson doesn’t really want him there—only that he doesn’t want him to find Madison, worry him even more. And, truth be told, he doesn’t know how much good Madison could even do, if it would be enough to be worth stripping away what little is left of his sense of control. What’s more important?</p><p>Jefferson’s eyes, hurting, pleading.</p><p>“Fine,” Hamilton agrees, settling to sit cross-legged by the side of the sofa. His hands fidget in his lap. He tries to remember how Madison soothes Jefferson. Tries not to think of how he could never. That he has no right to do that. “Do you want me to…?”</p><p>“I don’t—<em>fuck</em>—know<em>.” </em>Jefferson drinks again, coughs, chokes. “Jesus, just do something obnoxious. Annoy me, for fuck’s sake. I don’t care. Please, Hamilton. Just do <em>something.”</em></p><p>“Come on, give me some more direction than that—”</p><p>“So just fuckin' talk! Jesus. I’m givin’ you a goddamn <em> excuse </em>to use that smart ass mouth of yours.”</p><p>(There’s a way Jefferson means it, and then there’s the way that flashes obtrusive into Hamilton’s mind, that he shoves away out of hand—)</p><p>Madison would probably hold Jefferson’s hand. Rub slow circles into his palm. Steady. Calm. Present. Press his lips to Jefferson’s brow until the creased lines soften.</p><p>Those luxuries are neither Hamilton’s to give nor to take.</p><p>So he does the next best thing, the thing he knows he can always do to get Jefferson’s attention. He shifts, organizes his thoughts, lays out his logic, and he argues.</p><p>“Fine. Let’s talk about your obnoxious fucking accent first,” he says, launching into a speech he wrote ages ago. “I don’t know if it’s part of your rich Southern boy affectation or what, but the second I first heard you talk…”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><em> I’m givin’ you a goddamn </em> excuse <em> to use that smart ass mouth of yours. </em></p><p>It’s the second time Hamilton wakes up that night because of Jefferson.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Jefferson eventually works his way up to a lurching, stunted hobble. His left leg trails behind him, trailing along the ground with every pitching heave forward. It’s ineffective, it’s unreliable, and it sends fear straight down Hamilton’s spine.</p><p>What if they get cornered? They’ve stayed still too long. The longer they stay put, the better the chances someone stumbles on them. The better the chances a horde of infected passes through, traps them inside without enough water, without enough food to wait them out. There are a million emergencies that could spring up at a moment’s notice, and they only have two out of three people ready to handle them.</p><p>What’s worse is that the problem builds upon itself: the less Jefferson uses his hurt leg, the weaker it gets. The weaker it gets, the less he uses it. Jefferson knows it all just as well as Hamilton, spends most of the day fuming, swearing—and, finally, he snaps.</p><p>“Hamilton,” Jefferson says one day when Madison is gone. His voice isn’t overtly emotional, but it sends a shiver of dread down Hamilton’s spine nonetheless. “If I can’t get to a point where I can at least walk a dozen fuckin’ steps without tripping, I’m going to drag you both down.”</p><p>“Quit talking,” Hamilton immediately cuts him off—but as usual, Jefferson doesn’t fucking listen. Jefferson’s not going to fucking listen, and he’s going to make Hamilton think about something that’s going to tug at the sloppy stitches that’re just barely binding him together. He doesn’t care that it’s true; he doesn’t want to think about it. Can’t think about it.</p><p>“You can’t keep a liability like that around forever. If something happens—”</p><p><em> “Shut up,” </em> Hamilton snarls, anger flooding hot and raw into his voice.</p><p>Jefferson blinks, unusually taken aback. But he can’t fucking let it go, can’t let it drop, can’t understand why Hamilton needs him to stop. He pushes.</p><p>“If something happens, just make sure Madison’s alright,” he says. “Promise me.”</p><p>“Here’s my counteroffer: I’ll promise you that I’ll kick your ass when you can fucking fight back.”</p><p>He slams the door so hard on his way out that the walls rattle. An hour later, Madison comes back from a hunting trip, finds him outside leaned against the Escalade puffing viciously on a cigarette. The remnants of the better part of a pack litter the ground around him. His throat is dry, and his eyes sting from smoke, and his lungs ache, but he doesn’t care.</p><p>Madison joins him wordlessly, accepts a cigarette and a light.</p><p>“Smoking is a vice,” Madison says even as he takes a drag, the words falling familiar and automatic from his mouth. “So my father always told me.”</p><p>“That how you got Jefferson to quit? Nagging like someone’s goddamn dad?” Hamilton shoots back, voice dry and cutting.</p><p>“No,” Madison says after a beat, offering Hamilton a wry, private smile. “I told him I had asthma. Or let him believe as much, at any rate.”</p><p>“Hold on. You what?”</p><p>“While we were at boarding school, Thomas saw an inhaler in our room. It belonged to a friend, but I suppose my health was poor enough then that it was no great leap to believe it was mine.” Madison tilts his head to the side, thoughtful. “I hoped it would encourage him to stop smoking.”</p><p>Hamilton has to take a half second to process, then, surprising himself, he laughs.</p><p>“You faked an autoimmune disorder to guilt him into quitting?”</p><p>“To stop him from developing preventable diseases, yes,” Madison replies, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke. “I can excuse a well-placed white lie every now and then.” His head turns to Hamilton, and, again, he smiles a private smile. “That besides, I despise the smell of smoke.”</p><p>“My old roommate was like that,” he says, even as the words make his chest tight. “Didn’t even fucking matter in the end. Should’ve just kept smoking. Not gonna get much use out of those last couple of years I saved by quitting anyways.”</p><p>“That’s not true.”</p><p>“Come on,” Hamilton says, throat dry. “I should be dead. If I weren’t different, I would be.”</p><p>Sometimes Hamilton forgets how much guilt Madison carries. About his bite. About his immunity. About the constant burden crushing his spine. Sometimes, Hamilton says something, too caught up in his self-pity to realize what he’s doing until it’s too late, until guilt stings unexpected and sudden under Madison’s skin, wells up behind his eyes.</p><p>“But it’s for the best,” Hamilton hastens to say. “Something to see through.”</p><p>The guilt doesn’t go away at all. Madison doesn’t even look at him for something like a minute, expression carefully controlled when he at last does.</p><p>“Did Thomas say something to you?” he asks, voice measured.</p><p>“What are you talking about?”</p><p>“You were upset when I showed up.”</p><p>Hamilton’s mouth pulls down. He sees the conversation now for what it is: Madison’s attempt to lower his guard before asking what he wanted to know all along. Madison knows him too well, knows that Hamilton seals himself off tighter when he’s angry, knows it takes coaxing to get him to talk. And Hamilton knows Madison well enough to recognize the ploy for what it is.</p><p>He shakes his head, drops his cigarette to the ground and crushes it under his shoe.</p><p>“I wasn’t upset,” he lies, more upset than ever.</p><p>Of everything, that’s what upsets him most.</p><p>Jefferson is fucking inconsiderate, a goddamn asshole, but he’s hurt and trying and frightened, and Hamilton can forgive him for that when he’s not too angry and frightened to see straight himself. But Jefferson, even as misguided as it was, tried to bring him in.</p><p>Madison has only reminded Hamilton of what he is: a go-between.</p><p>“I’m going to wash off,” he says, voice tight. Madison blinks, tries to say something else, change the subject—but Hamilton’s already gone, cigarette left to smolder.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><em> I’m givin’ you a goddamn </em> excuse <em> to use that smart ass mouth of yours. </em></p><p>The second time it wakes Hamilton up, he stares guilt-ridden at the ceiling—except this time, he slides out from the sleeping bag. A million excuses play through his head: <em> it’s been too long, you’re too goddamn stressed, it was just a dream. </em></p><p>All of that makes it easy enough to justify slipping into a room elsewhere alone, to justify the usual frilless, perfunctory down-slide of his waistband, the almost too-much friction drag of his palm, the faceless, formless images his mind conjures.</p><p>It’s safe, so he sticks to faceless, nameless, imprecise people, and it’s justifiable. He’s human. What happens in his dreams is beyond his control. If it wasn’t, he wouldn’t have so many goddamn nightmares. Perfunctory. Get it out of his fucking system. </p><p>Thumb over the head. Twist his grip. Legs spread. Nails in his thigh. Up, down.</p><p>Faceless but warm, words without voices, nothing else.</p><p>His breath catches, hips stutter, hand speeds up, leans over the edge and—</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Two and a half weeks on from the garage incident, it’s Hamilton’s turn to collect water.</p><p><em> The garage incident—</em>that’s all they’ll call it now in some misguided effort to downplay the nightmare. Hamilton doesn’t think it works, because he’s pretty sure Madison is maybe outpacing even him. It’s hard to say for sure—he’s moved to sleeping in another room, isn’t woken up by the terrified sounds Madison makes in his sleep.</p><p>But the long and short of it is that two and a half weeks have passed, and Hamilton’s on water duty. The four-mile walk is viciously hot and filled with what feels like a maliciously excessive number of infected. Hamilton is never one to waste ammo—and that besides, his pistol’s too damn loud not to draw more—so he hacks his way through when he can’t sneak past. Good and blood-covered by the time he makes it to the stream, he bends over, frustrated.</p><p>He looks up after refilling the last bottle to see what’s left of Eliza Schuyler staring at him.</p><p>She—no. No, not she. It. <em> It </em>screams. Hamilton gasps, rolls out of the way, grabs a moss-slick stone from the stream. The infected launches itself at him.</p><p>He hesitates.</p><p>Teeth threaten to snag his throat, and, at last, he brings the rock forward.</p><p><em> Not Eliza,</em> he reminds himself as he straightens, watching the water spread red with blood. On shaking feet, he walks forward, diligently scrubs his hands free of blood.</p><p>Hamilton can see now that it’s not Eliza—that it never was. The build isn’t right. The face isn’t right. The hair is too light, too short. It was only ever his imagination.</p><p>But even torn and bloodied, the blue dress looks so much like hers used to.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton doesn’t know why it shakes him as much as it does. It gets under his skin like the dirt beneath his nails: impossible to scrub away. Something is simmering just below the surface, trying to break through. Trying to—but maybe he isn’t quite letting it.</p><p>“Hamilton?” Jefferson’s voice cuts through his thoughts, vaguely irritated. “I asked if you want wine.”</p><p>Hamilton blinks, lifts his head to blink at Jefferson. Dinner sits in front of him—food he doesn’t remember being served. Jefferson’s tongue clicks against his teeth, impatient.</p><p>“Yeah,” Hamilton says at last, distracted as he nudges his glass over. </p><p>Jefferson pours—moves to pull the bottle away, but Hamilton motions for more, doesn’t wave him off until his glass nearly overflows. Jefferson arches a brow, but says nothing—his own glass is more than healthy, but wine is at least an improvement over bourbon. </p><p>The alcohol doesn’t ward the feeling off. </p><p>All it earns him is slinking little creased-brow looks the whole night through.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He can’t fucking remember what Eliza looks like.</p><p>He can’t fucking remember her face. He knew she wasn’t the infected, knew that face wasn’t right, but he can’t remember hers.</p><p>Eliza, the first person he ever fell in love with, who he was so head over heels for that he thought he was going to fucking <em> marry </em>her—and he can’t even remember her face. He’s already long since forgotten her voice, her smile, and now he doesn’t even have her face.</p><p>He doesn’t have <em> any </em>of their faces.</p><p>Perfectly, he can remember the bright yellow bouquet of daffodils clutched tight to Peggy’s chest, but he can’t see the graceful arcs of her face. He can remember how much Burr’s little smug fucking smile grated on his nerves, but he can’t see the man behind the memory. He can’t see the intelligent gleam in Angelica’s eyes, the kindness in Eliza’s, the restless energy in Laurens’. He can’t see any of them. He can’t even fucking picture Hercules, and he saw the damn man six months ago.</p><p>The realization hits him hard, carves away some piece of his soul he didn’t even realize he was trying to hold onto. He stumbles, gives up hunting, stumbles hard and sinks to the ground with his back scraped up against the rough bark of a trunk.</p><p>With his head buried in one hand, he fishes a photo out of his pocket with the other.</p><p>Laurens smiles up at him.</p><p>Hamilton tries to remember his voice, but he can’t. </p><p>(He can’t remember any of their voices).</p><p>He tries to picture their faces, but the ones he sees in his mind come from his imagination, not from any actual reality. He’s lost another one of his connections to the past. His hold is so damn weak now it may as well not exist. It’s nothing but thin, frayed threads.</p><p>Hamilton looks down at Laurens, tries to dedicate every detail of his face to memory.</p><p>
  <em> What difference does it make? He’s still gone. </em>
</p><p>He tries to memorize it—but even as he does, without the photo, he knows he’d forget.</p><p>And just like that, the strongest of the threads tying him to it would snap.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Faceless shadows haunt Hamilton’s dreams. They stand together, whirl around one another, ignore him no matter how hard he tries to come close. Their voices eddy and swirl dulled and faraway as if they’re coming from underwater.</p><p>One of them holds daffodils in their hands. Another smiles from beneath shadows, self-righteous. Between flickers and flutters of shadows, baby blue peers out.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Hamilton tries to tell them, but they don’t hear.</p><p>To them, he’s nothing but black.</p><p>A shadow, silent and faceless.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“I want to move out,” Hamilton tells Madison the next day when they’re out clearing infected around the perimeter of the hospital.</p><p>“Thomas can’t walk ten feet without tripping,” Madison points out, voice dry.</p><p>Hamilton’s stomach knots. He’s restless, filled to the brim with pent-up energy that has nowhere to go but his mind. Madison needs his meditation, Jefferson his yoga—Hamilton needs the open road. Needs not to feel trapped. Needs to stay on the move.</p><p>The one time he didn’t was where everything went to shit.</p><p>Hamilton’s silence draws Madison’s attention much more than any protest ever could, and the man studies him carefully. Madison takes in the exhaustion written under Hamilton’s eyes, the way his hands fidget at his sides, how his mouth is downturned, lips pressed thin.</p><p>Slowly, the coolness in Madison’s expression softens. He reaches out, thoughtlessly brushes his thumb over Hamilton’s knuckles in a soothing gesture Hamilton’s seen a thousand times.</p><p>“I’ll see what I can do,” he says, and then he turns away.</p><p>Hamilton’s seen Madison do it a thousand times and had it done to him exactly once.</p><p>The patchwork of scarred skin over his knuckles seems to burn.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Hamilton and I are going on a day-trip hunting,” Madison tells Jefferson two days later.</p><p>Jefferson’s mouth twitches in displeasure.</p><p>“I’m coming,” he says as he tries to stand, makes it onto his feet for all of three seconds before he falls back, Madison catching him to ease him back down onto the seat.</p><p>“Stay here and rest,” Madison says, voice firm—but he softens when Jefferson fixes him with a look that’s as firm as it is pleading, touches Jefferson’s jaw. <em> “Pour moi, chérie?” </em></p><p>Jefferson tries to stay stiff—but he can’t. With a shake of his head, he gives.</p><p><em> “Putain de merde,” </em>he mutters, and even if Hamilton didn’t know French, he’d know the sound of Jefferson swearing anywhere, in any language. Jefferson looks up, fixes both of them with a hard look. “For fuck’s sake, be careful.”</p><p>“We’ll be careful,” Madison reassures. “Just stay put.”</p><p>“Oh, I’m not going far,” Jefferson says, barking out a dry laugh.</p><p>Hamilton and Madison pack: a rifle apiece, their handguns, Madison’s knives, Hamilton’s bow. Madison bids Jefferson one last farewell with a kiss while Hamilton waits in the door. </p><p>Then the two of them set off—only instead of setting off into the woods, Madison leads them to the Escalade.</p><p>“Do you want to drive?” he asks, indulgent.</p><p>“Where are we going?” Hamilton asks, dubious. “The woods around here are good enough to hunt.”</p><p>“They are,” Madison concedes. “But we aren’t going hunting. Now, do you want to drive?”</p><p>Hamilton pauses, waiting for information that Madison doesn’t give.</p><p>“Yes,” he says at last, taking the keys and sliding into the driver’s seat.</p><p>Madison settles in beside him, pulls a map from his pocket, lays it flat over the dash.</p><p>“We’re headed east, two hours away. I’ll give you directions.”</p><p>“Two hours? Are we gonna have enough gas for that?”</p><p>“I have enough siphoned for a full tank and a refill. I foresee no problems.”</p><p>“You think of everything, huh?” he wryly asks, earning an equally droll smile.</p><p>“I would like to think so.”</p><p>“Yeah, then what are you gonna tell Jefferson when he figures out you lied to him?”        </p><p>Madison has no answer for that: the next time he speaks, he merely gives directions. Hamilton doesn’t know where they’re headed—and Madison doesn’t seem inclined to tell him. The answer only reveals itself when Madison at last tells him to turn into a lot, and the ivy-overgrown façade of an old white-wood-planked museum stretches overhead.</p><p>“What, am I getting a fucking history lesson?” Hamilton asks with narrowed eyes as they leave the car, gather their things: packs, flashlights, weapons.</p><p>Madison clicks his tongue in faux irritation—or maybe real irritation. Without an explanation, he heads inside. Hamilton lingers outside, reluctant—but he ultimately hastens after Madison, gun drawn. Side-by-side, the two of them creep through the bottom floor.  </p><p>It’s eerily empty inside, eerily still. Every footstep is accompanied by the shriek of wood beneath their feet. The only sunlight creeps in through the cracks in shuttered windows, specks of dust suspended in its rays. Madison sneezes every other step, at last takes to pressing a handkerchief over the lower half of his face with his revolver-free hand.</p><p>“Come on,” Madison mutters in frustration as they pass through exhibits.</p><p>Hamilton’s eyes trail over the glass-encased items as they pass: old clothes, jewelry, paintings. There are old ship models, antiques, ends-and-pieces: the whole place strikes him more like the findings of an eccentric collector than any kind of legitimate museum.</p><p>“Madison, seriously,” Hamilton at last says, shaking his head as they pass panels of seemingly random British tapestries. “What the ever-loving fuck are we doing here?”</p><p>Madison finally looks over his shoulder, sighs.</p><p>“I’m looking for something,” he answers, as if that’s a suitable explanation for dragging them halfway across the state. “I’ve been combing through tourist guides for days,” he adds, frustrated, apparently deciding that that’s a statement that can stand just fine on its own.</p><p>They pass into another room; Madison at last slows his stride, coming to a stop. Hamilton follows, pauses right after him. This room is no different from the rest: dim, dusty, creaky—but it grabs Hamilton’s attention ten times as many as the others. His eyes make a slow circle around the room, eyeing display cases of muskets, early colonial-era rifles, military uniforms, ancient cannons. Madison starts to search, eyes picking over the selection.</p><p>Hamilton comes to a stop in front of a display with dozens of different bladed weapons ranging from knives to swords to things that surely have much more interesting names.</p><p>“You wanted a fancy eighteenth century gun?” Hamilton deduces, lifting his pistol.</p><p>He taps the heavy handle against the glass as a test, lifts the weapon, then smashes it down. Glass shatters unceremoniously, drenching the weapons in shards. Madison shoots him a disapproving look, which Hamilton summarily ignores in favor of testing weapons.</p><p>“No,” Madison answers, still distracted as he circles the room. His face twists with concentration. “This is for Thomas.”</p><p>“Jefferson wants a fancy eighteenth century gun?” Hamilton dryly asks, earning himself a sigh.</p><p>“I don’t understand why I tolerate you,” he says, but there’s a fondness that undercuts the words.</p><p>Hamilton plucks up a wicked-looking combat knife, slashes it through the air—then, satisfied, he takes the accompanying holster before joining Madison. Madison finally stops in front of the display with a sigh of relief. Hamilton follows his gaze.</p><p>He frowns.</p><p>Madison pulls his rifle, smashes the butt against it until spiderweb cracks appear and widen to crevices and then at last disintegrates into pulverized bits. Hamilton helps him clear away the glass, watches as Madison reaches into the display and withdraws a cane. He passes it over, distracted.</p><p>Hamilton blinks at the sudden, surprising heft in his hands. His brow furrows. It’s elegant, smooth dark wood capped with a silver pieces on both ends. Subtle gold inlays and engravings decorate the shaft. It’s nice, sure, but it’s still just a fucking cane.</p><p>He says as much, and Madison steps out of the display, takes it from his hands, toys with the top end, twisting, turning—and, finally, with a <em> click, </em>he pulls up on the grip.</p><p>Something sharp and metallic and long slides out, <em> whishes </em>through the air.</p><p>“What the <em> fuck?” </em>Hamilton asks, eyes going wide as he backs away from the three-something-foot rapier in Madison’s hand. Madison looks half as surprised, blinking.</p><p>“Well,” Madison says, retrieving the bottom half of the cane—the casing? “It would appear that it’s intact, at least.”</p><p>“That <em> what’s </em>intact, exactly?”</p><p>“Victorian-era weaponry,” Madison explains with a nod towards the placard: <em> swordstick, </em>the label reads. “Never particularly popular in the colonies, but I recalled seeing them on exhibition in the Museum of London. So as I remember it, they were created as a workaround to the disapproval that arose towards open-sword carries.”</p><p>Hamilton blinks.</p><p>“What, he wouldn’t’ve been happy with a regular fuckin’ cane?”</p><p>Madison busies himself binding the walking stick to the side of his pack.</p><p>“His pride is already wounded enough. I have no want to wound it further by suggesting he use a cane for the time being,” Madison explains, his voice taking on the quiet, worried timber only Jefferson can wring out of him. “I thought this might at least soften the blow. Act as a compromise while we’re on the move.”</p><p>“Lot of trouble to find a goddamn cane,” Hamilton replies, wry and dry-mouthed. Is there anything either of them wouldn’t do for each other, no matter how ridiculous? How far would they go for him? How far would that dedication extend? “Maybe he shouldn’t be so damn prideful.”</p><p>Madison fixes him with a half-amused, half-pierced look. </p><p>“When, pray tell,” Madison remarks, “have you ever asked either of us for help for anything that’s more trouble than getting a door open?”</p><p>Hamilton’s mouth closes.</p><p>“As I thought,” he says, his lips forming a wry, private smile that Hamilton doesn’t quite know how to read. “Both of you are far more alike than you give yourselves credit for.”</p><p>“How unfortunate for you.”</p><p>“Yes,” Madison agrees a moment later, eyes going back to the displays. “Unfortunate indeed.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“First of all,” Jefferson scowls, “you fucking <em> lied </em> to me. What if something had happened? How long would I have spent wandering around the fucking woods before I died, huh?” Jefferson stands, leaning heavily on his good leg. Anger apparently mutes the pain, because he manages a lurching, dragging walk over, eyes flashing. “Secondly—I’m not fucking using that,” he snaps, eyes dropping to the cane in Madison’s hands.</p><p>“Think you would’ve noticed the Escalade was missing,” Hamilton points out, dry.</p><p>“Oh, fuck, thanks for that, Hamilton. So I would’ve had to expand my search radius <em> to the rest of the goddamn country!” </em></p><p>“Thomas,” Madison says. “This is a discussion, not an argument.”</p><p>“The fuck it’s not an argument! Don’t you get it? If something happens when I’m not there, what the fuck am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to move on if I don’t even know whether you’re alive? You know how much that fuckin’ <em> terrifies </em> me? And I can barely <em> walk, </em>you don’t understand, if something happens, and I can’t even get to you—” </p><p>Choked-off, he goes quiet. He angrily shakes his head, and Hamilton pretends that it doesn’t matter that Jefferson is ignoring him entirely, talking right to Madison even though he’s right there. Madison doesn’t notice, Jefferson doesn’t notice—fuck, maybe neither of them even know what they’re doing. Maybe it makes sense: maybe Jefferson knows Hamilton was just along for the ride. Maybe there is an explanation.</p><p>But Hamilton doesn’t look.</p><p>Heart tight in his throat, he slips out. Shuts the door harder than he needs to.</p><p>He comes back late; they’ve already eaten. There’s a plate left out, but he packs it up, saves it for some other time. He goes to his room, alone, messes with his new knives until they’re sharper than anything. Eventually, he sleeps a little.</p><p>He doesn’t ask what happened, but the next day, Jefferson’s reluctantly hobbling around with the cane in hand, and that seems to be enough for Madison.</p><p>
  <em> Should be enough for you too. Needs to be. </em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>When Jefferson can reliably hobble a hundred feet, they pack up the Escalade and move out. The tight jaw while he walks doesn’t loosen but, but at least his gait improves slowly but surely as they head northeast.</p><p><em> Montpelier, </em>Hamilton thinks.</p><p>If he were Madison, would he want to know?</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t know what it feels like. He’s not quite sure what to say. </p><p>Madison’s initial confidence in the course of action seems to have faltered some. At time, doubt creeps into the set of his shoulders and into his eyes. That’s only what Hamilton notices, of course—Jefferson must see what he sees times a dozen. It seems like there’s a constant hand over Madison’s, an ongoing conversation happening that Hamilton’s not in on.</p><p>
  <em> Are you sure? We don’t have to do this. If we do, I’m with you every step. </em>
</p><p>No one asks him to, but Hamilton shoulders the biggest load anyways. </p><p>Scavenging, hunting, cooking. Infected.</p><p>He gets bitten, once, a combination of carelessness and bravado that leaves a crescent moon of shallow punctures along his wrist. He hides it, of course, dodges the guilt-worry that swells behind Madison’s indifferent eyes with each bite. The skin reddens, grows hot to the touch, aches. Hamilton slathers it beneath disinfectant and ointment, and it heals over in days.</p><p>He feels like he’s still waiting on his turn.</p><p>Did his friends wait on their turns? Look down one day and see a scratch of bite and know it was over? Think it was over? Sit down, close their eyes, and wait? Have one last moment of defiance? End it there?</p><p>What does it say if they did, and Hamilton didn’t? Didn’t have to?</p><p>He wonders about his friends more than he means to. If he had the chance to know about those that he knows could still theoretically be alive, would he? Even if he knew the news would almost certainly be bad? Would he feel better?</p><p>Or would he just think of those that weren’t? See them alone, fighting for every last second of sanity the infection hadn’t yet taken?</p><p>It would fucking haunt him. More than everything else already knows.</p><p>No, he doesn’t want to know. Not unless they’re alive.</p><p>That’s a difference between him and Madison: Madison has always known everything, has always been calm, collected, in control. Madison has always had the luxury of tomorrow, the promise of a roof over his head, a family to catch him if he falls. Hamilton, though, has lived with uncertainty ever since his mother’s last breath. Hamilton has scrapped just to survive for longer than he hasn’t. He’s never had a last name with any weight. </p><p>If he was going to make it, if he was going to have a lasting legacy—it was all always up to him and to him alone. There’s no hope of legacies anymore, not really, nothing but the possibility of a vaccine and his name somewhere nearby—but that mindset lingers.</p><p>Like Jefferson, Madison used to know everything, and now what does he know? Nothing, except that going to Montpelier will give him some sense of knowing, some way of moving on.</p><p>But what if they get there and everyone’s dead? What then? Not even Madison—cool, collected, in control—can go without grieving something like that. There’s no room to grieve anymore—not for long. People who grieve too long die. People who don’t stay at the top of their game every second they’re drawing breath die. </p><p>Hamilton has seen it before, and he’s pushed away his grief to a place where it can only hurt him in his lowest moments, and that’s where it has to stay. If he lets it go, he doesn’t know if he can keep his head above the water. If Madison gets in over his head, Hamilton doesn’t know if Jefferson will be enough to pull him out in time—or to pull him out at all.</p><p>He doesn’t know how many more people he can lose before he can’t hold back his grief. Before he has to choose between breaking himself or breaking what it is that makes him alive.</p><p>The uncertainty, the stress, the fear—they swarm him, dog his every step. Twists and builds, tension taut like a rubber band pulled too far.</p><p>He’s human, and that means he has all the failings of one. </p><p>Sometimes he’s so fucking mean he wants to knock the shit out of himself. He doesn’t even know where it comes from, when and where and why it’ll well up. Later, he tries to trace back his steps, but there’s nothing that could’ve set it off—Jefferson and Madison have been off together in their own little world all day, and he’s been left to his own devices, reading, writing, thinking. He doesn’t know where exactly it comes from.</p><p>(Only he does—knows exactly who he inherited his mean streak from. The person he got his last name from, who gave him that and all his cruelest parts, the worst pieces of himself).</p><p>“What if they’re all dead?” he asks as Jefferson slides silent onto the porch to join him one night in the last half of June.</p><p>They’re in Virginia now. Hamilton has been up for going on thirty-one hours—no sleep last night, only a couple hours stolen in the car. It’s well past midnight, but he’s not tired now. He sips at a bottle of beer procured from the house they’re squatting in, offers another to Jefferson. Jefferson stands there, surprised by his question, then at last takes it.</p><p>“I don’t think they all are. Can’t even know about all of them. But… shit, I don’t know,” he admits, joining Hamilton by the railing. He leans heavily on the railing, bad leg loosely touching the ground. Hamilton says nothing. “I don’t fucking know.”</p><p>“Bullshit. You always have a goddamn answer, even if it’s a stupid fucking answer. That’s why you were such a good goddamn politician,” Hamilton tells him, listing slightly as he stands upright.</p><p>From the corner of his eye, Hamilton sees Jefferson’s eyes narrow. Jefferson studies him, then drops his eyes to the half dozen empty bottles and cans scattered on the porch.</p><p>“Well, that answers whether you’re a dumbass,” Jefferson deadpans. “I can’t believe you’ve been getting drunk outside without even telling either of us where you are.”</p><p>“Not drunk,” Hamilton protests. “Drunk is when the only fucking thing I feel is that I’m about to puke.”</p><p>“Hamilton—”</p><p>“Jesus, Jefferson! Just answer the question. What are we going to do if everyone’s dead?”</p><p>“I told you—I don’t fucking <em> know! </em> I’m not the goddamn Oracle of Delphi. I don’t <em> have </em>all the answers anymore.”</p><p>“Well, who the fuck <em> does </em> know?” Hamilton shouts, fear licking up like a flame. “Because I sure as hell don’t! He’s <em> your </em> boyfriend. <em> You’re </em> the one who’s known him for a fucking decade! <em> You’re </em>the one that’s supposed to tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do if he loses it!”</p><p>“Take a fucking breath,” Jefferson orders him. “He knows how much he can take. He wouldn’t do something if he couldn’t handle it.” He pauses. “He wouldn’t do that to me.’</p><p>“How the hell can you know that? You didn’t even have a family,” Hamilton spits.</p><p>Surprise flashes fast across Jefferson’s face, anger hot on its heels.</p><p>“Did you forget Lafayette?” he hotly asks. Hamilton’s mouth opens—and then closes. <em> Gonna regret that, </em> he thinks, but the vicious part of him shoots back: <em> too fucking bad. </em>Jefferson’s eyes grow angrier. “In that thick fucking skull of yours, have you got a goddamn ounce of regret?”</p><p>
  <em> Don’t, please don’t, shut up— </em>
</p><p>“Yeah, I regret that your boyfriend’s alive, and that mine’s not,” Hamilton snaps in a perfectly calculated move to cut right under Jefferson’s hard anger to the soft, vulnerable part beneath.</p><p>He doesn’t even realize what he’s said until Jefferson’s eyes widen. </p><p>
  <em> You didn’t just fucking say that. You didn’t. God, you didn’t. </em>
</p><p>The bottle slips from Jefferson’s hand and shatters as it falls.</p><p>Hamilton does this. He knows he does this. He can get so goddamn unlikeable, so goddamn mean, and he doesn’t mean it, never means it, but he does it anyways. He does it anyways. Like lashing out will spread out his hurt. Give him back the things that’re gone.</p><p>It won’t. It never has. </p><p>But he does it anyways.</p><p>“That’s a real nasty fuckin' thing to say, and you know it,” Jefferson says, voice quiet-taut with anger, and—even worse than that—genuine hurt.</p><p>Hamilton desperately wants to apologize. He means to. Really. But all the stress and spite swells hot and venomous in his stomach, and he doubles down.</p><p>“Go fuck yourself,” he tells Jefferson.</p><p>And Jefferson tries anyways.</p><p>“You know what? I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and believe you’re too shitfaced to know what you’re saying. Come find me to apologize when you’re feeling like less of a bastard.”</p><p>“Don’t call me that,” Hamilton snarls, pushing himself right into Jefferson’s space.</p><p>
  <em> Let it go. Please. </em>
</p><p>There’s a moment where Jefferson thinks about just walking away; Hamilton can see it clear on his face. He considers it, considers deescalating—because clearly Hamilton can’t.</p><p>But Jefferson is only a man.</p><p>“Act like a little less of a <em> bastard, </em>and maybe I won’t,” he snaps, giving in to anger.</p><p>“Call me that <em> one more time—" </em></p><p>“Why? Can call you a fucking asshole and an idiot and whatever else, but bastard does you in? How’s that?” Jefferson’s too-white teeth flash. “Daddy issues?” he guesses, too innocent.</p><p>Hamilton’s hands curl into fists at his sides. Jefferson notices, of course, laughs low in his chest.</p><p>“Every fucking thing you ever earned was because of your last name.”</p><p>“Oh, everything <em>I </em>ever earned? Bitch, please. At least people will remember me. The only fuckin’ thing anyone’ll know you for after you’re six feet under is for punching some jackass politician.”</p><p>“<em> Two </em>jackass politicians.”</p><p>“You must think you’re so fuckin’ cute, huh?”</p><p>Hamilton stalks forward until they’re almost chest-to-chest, draws himself up to his full height. Jefferson still fucking towers over him by half a foot, but he doesn’t fucking care.</p><p>What is he doing? Why won’t he shut the fuck up?</p><p>Tension crackles like lightning, and Hamilton can feel something truly fucking awful starting to build in his throat, something he might not be able to come back from, and—</p><p>The door swings open a second time. Madison, tired and disheveled, steps out. All at once, he shakes off sleep, eyes sharpening as he appraises them both, notes the tension thick as blood in the air. His eyes narrow, slide between the two of them.</p><p>“For Christ’s sake, which one of you would like to explain what the hell is going on here?”</p><p>And, like that, Jefferson can just forget all about him.</p><p>“You know what? Fuck this. Leave him,” Jefferson says, taking hold of Madison’s arm and moving towards the door. “He owes me a fucking apology, and I’m not talking to him until I get it. I’m serious.”</p><p>“Thomas, what even—”</p><p>“Jemmy,” Jefferson says in an insistent tone that Hamilton rarely hears.</p><p>Madison pauses a moment longer, tries to get Hamilton to meet his eyes—but he won’t. And so Madison takes Jefferson’s side, turns and goes back inside.</p><p>Hamilton looks out over the yard to the fields beyond. He thinks, slow and angry. And then, in a fit of fury he fucking <em> knows </em> is juvenile, he hurls his bottle. Distantly, glass shatters, but there’s nothing satisfying in the sound. There’s nothing satisfying at all, only a sinking pit in his chest.</p><p><em> “ </em> Goddamnit! <em> ” </em>he shouts, kicking at the fucking wooden railing and swearing violently when the rotted-out wood splinters beneath the force. “Goddamnit, goddamnit, goddamnit—"</p><p>The stress and worry and uncertainty in him hasn’t gone anywhere at all. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Jefferson is a man of his word.</p><p>Breakfast is a cold affair. A dozen words spoken in total. The car ride is cold, but at least there’s the defense of music playing through the speakers.</p><p>Dinner is outright icy. No conversation at all.</p><p>Jefferson doesn’t break all day, and Hamilton is agitated, restless by evening, pacing grooves into the floor of the boutique they’re bedding down in for the night.</p><p>The next day is the same—as is the one after.</p><p>Madison toes the line. He’s perfectly polite to Hamilton, but clearly conscious of just how fucking viciously angry Jefferson is, because his politeness never crosses over into warmth.</p><p>Hamilton paces nonstop.</p><p>He considers apologizing, and he dismisses the idea out of hand.</p><p>Jefferson won’t be content with a half-hearted sorry, and Hamilton doesn’t want to give him an explanation. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he has one—but he doesn’t want to bring it out. If he keeps it in the back of his mind, he doesn’t have to acknowledge it.</p><p>
  <em> Self-preservation. </em>
</p><p>Another day passes.</p><p>Madison breaks on the fourth day, catches him outside as he smokes.</p><p>“Hamilton, I don’t know whether your argument was petty or not, but I am losing my damn mind running the middle ground,” he exhales, running a hand over his face. “If you did something wrong—note the <em> if—</em>then please make it right—for my sake if no one else’s.”</p><p>Hamilton smokes his cigarette until what’s left of it burns his fingers just to hold.</p><p>Jefferson looks tired when Hamilton sees him.</p><p>Hamilton looks in the mirror, and he looks tired.</p><p>(He always looks tired, he tries to tell himself).</p><p>He’s so goddamn tired. He can’t sleep at all.</p><p>
  <em> Goddamnitgoddamnitgoddamnit— </em>
</p><p>It’s like he’s all fucking alone again, back to those first few months where he refused to care about them, refused to believe they cared about him—only neither of those things are true anymore. And now he can’t go back. He opened Pandora’s Box, and he can’t put it all back in.</p><p>He’s so goddamned miserable he can hardly stand it, and at last, he’s so goddamn miserable it doesn’t even seem to matter what he has to admit to make things right. After all, how much fucking worse can he feel? How much more fucking alone can he feel?</p><p>And it was his fault. Him who couldn’t shut his goddamn mouth. Him who cracked beneath the weight of it all because it got to be too much to hold up alone.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he blurts out as the week mark approaches.</p><p>Jefferson pauses mid-step towards the treeline surrounding the road, utterly unimpressed. Hamilton finishes scrambling out of the Escalade after him, closes the door behind him.</p><p>“That all?” Jefferson flatly asks, brows arched. He turns, walks away. “Because I’ve got to take a piss. So.”</p><p>Hamilton swallows hard, but he’s hasty to follow, practically tripping over himself to catch up with Jefferson’s long, fast strides—even as his one leg drags slower behind.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he repeats through the ache in his throat.</p><p>Jefferson ignores him.</p><p>Hamilton’s heart speeds up, anxious. He tries to reach for the explanation, but it slips right between his fingers, and he can only stand there dumbly. Jefferson at last turns, crosses his arms. In the sunlight, he looks more drained than ever.</p><p>“You look like shit,” Jefferson says, but the insult is flat.</p><p>“I always look like shit.”</p><p>“Then you look more like shit than usual.”</p><p>There’s a long silence. Jefferson at last either boils over or realizes it falls to him to start, because he shakes his head hard, words thick ,voice thin.</p><p>“You don’t know how goddamn sorry I am about what happened to John Laurens, but you had <em> no </em> fucking <em> right </em>to say what you did.”</p><p>“I know,” Hamilton says, voice dry.</p><p>“Yeah? Just now or…? ‘Cause I’ve been waiting a goddamn week, in case you fuckin’ missed that.”</p><p>Hamilton’s tongue is so damn thick he can barely get it to move. It takes Jefferson sighing impatiently and moving to turn away—maybe for good—before he can make it work at all.</p><p>“Because the more I care about you both, the more I have to lose,” he blurts out.</p><p>At last Jefferson looks at him like he’s actually listening.</p><p>“I’m not saying you haven’t lost, fuck, I don’t know, almost everything, but you always had Madison. You always had him,” Hamilton goes on, the words coming out in a frantic rush of air. “But I lost <em> everything. </em>Every last thing I had. Every last person. After Charleston, I had—I had nothing. I can’t bring myself back from that again. I fucking can’t—I just can’t.”</p><p>“What the hell are you talking about?” Jefferson asks, but Hamilton is a goddamn runaway train, words spilling out of his mouth too fast to stop.</p><p>“I tried not to care about either of you, I really did, and I fucking couldn’t because I cared anyways—I <em> do. </em>I care so fucking much, and, fuck, I’m scared to lose you both,” he spills, his voice raw with desperation. “And, Christ, I just can’t stand the fucking thought of it. I can’t fucking stand the idea of losing someone else—and I just, I just screwed up, alright? I screwed up. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean any of it,” he says, voice cracking.</p><p>“Hamilton—" </p><p>“I was so goddamn alone. I can’t—” he says, quiet, and now his voice breaks. “I’m so fucking afraid of being alone. I won’t make it out in one piece again. I can’t. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”</p><p>Something harsh and wracking shakes his shoulders, his chest, his ribcage. Two years’ worth of grief threatens him, held back by nothing but sheer will, and he doesn’t cry. No tears. But his vision blurs to nothing, and Hamilton doesn’t even see him move until, skittish, almost nervous, Jefferson at last eases the last half-step forward. He wraps an arm around Hamilton’s back. Air rushes back into his chest. The world quiets, grief included.</p><p>Quiet: surroundings, heart, mind. Narrowed down to nothing but whatever Jefferson is saying, words he can’t make out, but the sorrow in his eyes belongs to him as much as to Hamilton. In this moment, the weight of it is shared. </p><p>The roar of grief quiets. The world quiets.</p><p>Chances are better than not that this will break him, Hamilton distantly knows.</p><p>He’s let them in. He’s letting himself get too attached. He’s setting himself up for tragedy.</p><p>One fuck-up, one second of bad luck, and he’s back to being alone. He can do it. He can survive. Stay alive. Go through the motions.</p><p>But not without losing himself.</p><p>And what the fuck are his alternatives?</p><p>No certain tomorrow: only today. </p><p>And today, when his feet threaten to give out, Jefferson keeps him from falling.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton keeps from falling all of two days later. Jefferson’s leg buckles, pitches him forward—and Hamilton surges forward, grabs him by the collar, hauls him upright. Madison replaces him in an instant, hands off his revolver—but Jefferson shakes him off, runs anyways.</p><p>It has to hurt, Hamilton thinks. Has to hurt like a fucking <em> bitch</em>. Jefferson can walk pretty well, can even run a little, but they’ve been sprinting full-fucking-force half a mile, trying to outpace the snarls and shrieks of hunting dogs, of their owners just behind.</p><p>
  <em> Fuckfuckfuck  </em>
</p><p>Jefferson probably can’t even fucking feel it, probably has adrenaline on his side, should be using his cane, but that would slow him down, and there’s the question, the question of how much he can take, how much his body can take before it won’t take him another step—</p><p>
  <em> Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck </em>
</p><p>It’s raining so goddamn hard, so goddamn hard Hamilton can barely fucking see, can barely keep track of where Madison and Jefferson are. The rain hits him hard, pelts him like stones. It’s been raining all day, is so goddamn wet, so goddamn muddy—</p><p>They crest a hill, scramble up with feet and hands, roots and rocks. Come out on the other side full-speed. Don’t realize how steep it is, just how far down it goes until it’s too late.</p><p>Hamilton gasps, yelps, and his feet slide straight out from under him in half a step. He’s off his feet, off anything, flying disoriented through space. He scrapes against a rock, crashes straight through a bush, straight over a five-foot drop. He somersaults wildly down the mudslide, ass over ankles, completely blind. <em> Get feet first, feet first, come on, come on—</em></p><p>His fingers clasp onto a thin sapling as he hurtles by. The sapling snaps, but it slows him enough that he can get control of his momentum, slide down feet-first on his back, hands scrabbling for purchase in the mud-soaked ground. It doesn’t help him to stop—he’s at the bottom of the hill before he’s not in free fall.</p><p>Even through adrenaline, everything fucking hurts.</p><p>Jefferson lies a dozen feet away, dazed, eyes glazey as he stares upwards. Blood drips out of a split lip, mixes with mud. Madison joins them both at the bottom of the fucking mountain a dozen seconds later with streaks of mud coating his face, sticks in his hair. It’s such an abnormal sight to see him so undignified that, absurdly, Hamilton almost laughs.</p><p>Whatever humor there is in the situation dies instantly.</p><p>Nearby, something <em> clicks. </em>Multiple somethings.</p><p>Hamilton freezes, slowly turns.</p><p>One. Two. Three. Four. Five.</p><p>Five infected shamble in their direction—not shamble. Shamble isn’t quite the right word. They thrash forward, arms and legs thrown out at odd angles as they move. Thick fungal plates conceal all but torn teeth and abyss-like mouths open in the frightening, guttural clicks.</p><p>
  <em> God, no, please, not the fucking clickers—</em>
</p><p>The five clickers alternately look in their directions, blindly staggering closer, drawn by the sounds of the three of them breaking their fucking ribs.</p><p>Madison and Hamilton reach for their guns at the same time—and both come up empty.</p><p>Metal glints half-buried in dirt two dozen feet away—Hamilton’s pistol, lost in his tumble. Madison’s revolver is nowhere to be found, and when the man quietly unstraps his rifle, he looks down and, horrified, finds the muzzle crammed full of mud. </p><p>So Jefferson is the last one left with a working gun. Recovered, brought back to life by the threat, he quietly aims his shotgun at the nearest infected. It shambles closer—fifteen feet away—then pivots, turning to stumble right. Jefferson follows it with his barrel.</p><p>Somewhere not far-off, a dog barks.</p><p>A fucking rock in front of them and a fucking hard place behind them.</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t even <em> know </em> that the people saw their faces, doesn’t even <em> know </em> that they know who the three of them are. Maybe they’re just fucking <em> hunting </em>them.</p><p>One of the infected clicks, stops. Still. Clicks again. Jerkily turns to Hamilton. Takes a shuddering step forward, thinks, then steps forward again until it’s only a second’s lunge away. </p><p>Hamilton’s knuckles whiten around the hilt of his combat knife. It’s hard to say if something like the infected can think, <em> really </em>think—but it seems to be. Its head tilts sideways in a parody of something human, head swiveling from side to side. It moves to step forward—and Jefferson whistles once, sharp and piercing.</p><p>The infected whip to him, snarl, shriek—and Jefferson fires once, twice. The first goes down hard, but the second keeps moving—and Jefferson’s reloading, scrambling backwards. Hamilton lunges, drives his knife into the skull of the closest—but the blade catches, the infected whirls around, yanks it straight out of his hand. He dodges a swiping arm, shouts, dives for his gun—puts three rounds into the infected’s head before it crumples.</p><p>“Madison!” Jefferson shouts—and Hamilton’s attention spins just in time to see Madison hit the ground. Jefferson fires point-black, and skull splits into mist. Hamilton can’t pause, has to turn to the next clicker, shoots again, blows off armored fungal plates—gun clicks empty, right as Madison’s knife stabs through the side of its neck.</p><p>Jefferson is on his feet, gun empty, canesword out—slashes viciously, stabs until the last of the clickers falls. Bloody, gasping hard, the three of them reconvene, circle together.</p><p>Around them, shrieks rise into the air. More of the clicking infected appear through breaks in the trees, blindly closing in—and the others appear, shrieking as they see them all.</p><p>“Wait—I can’t find my goddamn gun,” Madison swears, pulling away from their circle to search.</p><p>“Jemmy, we need to go,” Jefferson says, eyes going wide.</p><p>“Thomas, that was—”</p><p>“I know, baby,” Jefferson interrupts in a rush of air, one hand clamped tight over where they pulled the bullet out of his thigh, jaw closed tight. The infected are getting closer, dogs getting close, Hamilton’s eyes going wide. “I’m sorry, Jemmy. I’m sorry. But we need to go.”</p><p>Madison looks around, mouth pressed tight—and then he shakes his head once, something upset cutting straight through his demeanor.</p><p>But they run.</p><p>Hands swipe at them as they go, teeth gnashing, slipping and sliding in the mud. Madison trips flat, swears, and Hamilton yanks him up—then Jefferson falls a dozen feet away, leg buckling. Hamilton shoots; Madison hauls him back upright, and they run again. Thunder smacks above them. The sky opens with a flash. Rain lashes Hamilton’s face, sharp, stinging.</p><p>Feet hurt. Legs burn. Lungs—<em>move, move, move. </em></p><p>An infected appears in his path—Hamilton sees too late. He skids, slides right, but fingers snag his shirt, yank him back. His pistol connects hard with its jaw once, twice, again until it lets go. Madison dodges graceful, ducks, slides; Jefferson slashes so fucking violent with his swordstick at anything that comes within three feet of him that he hacks a path.</p><p>It’s two, three miles before the woods break, open into a field with a farmhouse a quarter mile away. Hamilton turns, sees flashes of the things chasing them, sees Madison and Jefferson just up ahead, Jefferson’s run quickly deteriorating into a hurried stumble.</p><p>“I’m right behind you!” Hamilton shouts as he peels off left, drawing packs of infected after him to take the pressure off of them.</p><p>Feet burn legs burn lungs burn—<em>don’tstopdon’tstopdon’tstop. </em></p><p>He glances over his shoulder, sees two shapes at the porch, one disappearing through a window. Hamilton corrects course, rushes forward. The other shape—Madison—vaults over the railing, starts shooting at the figures behind him. Hamilton bounds up the stairs in a leap, inside, Madison hot on his heels. Through the window. Into the foyer.</p><p>“Up here!” Jefferson shouts from atop a stairwell.</p><p>Up the stars, three steps at a time. Jefferson’s dragged a desk to the landing, and as soon as Madison’s feet touch the second floor, he braces, pushes it down.</p><p>Infected shriek up the stairs—and bones snap as the desk tumbles down, striking them straight-on like a bowling ball taken to human-soft pins. Jefferson shoves his shotgun and a box of ammo into Hamilton’s hands, and then he and Madison disappear into the house to build their barricade.</p><p>Hamilton holds the line as infected crawl up over broken bodies and wooden splinters—shooting, kicking, stabbing when he has to. </p><p>Three swarm him at once. Two, he takes down. One grabs his leg too fast, yanks hard—Hamilton screams wild and feral, goes tumbling down the stairs, infected too. He grabs the railing, desperate, stops his slide halfway down the steps, before he can be torn about at the bottom, but there’s infected racing and crawling towards him, an infected already on top of him, a fist crunching hard into his face. He screams, fights, has nothing on hand—no knife, no gun, nothing, nothing but the desperate, vicious fight inside him. Staying alive.</p><p>Kicks scratches punches shoves pushes </p><p>Hands grab him, and he thrashes, keeps fighting—</p><p>“Hamilton! <em> Hamilton—”</em></p><p>The hands—Jefferson’s—drag him out from beneath the infected, back to the top of the stairs, Madison covering their retreat, shotgun cracking with every step. Hamilton grabs his fallen gun, shoots too. Something screeches; Jefferson comes back with furniture, Madison and Hamilton alternatively helping: a nightstand, an old chest, chairs—all of it goes down the stairs, tangling up in an unsightly barricade until at last nothing else can ascend, can only swirl and snarl down below. Hamilton only realizes how badly he’s shaking when it’s over.</p><p>He looks down.</p><p>Deep gouges mar his torso, clawed there by the infected that took him down the stairs.</p><p>He stumbles, leans hard against the wall. Pretends the blood isn’t his.</p><p>Hamilton breathes in and out, tries to drain the tension from his shoulders.</p><p>He can’t.</p><p>So he counts. Eleven infected—some clicking, some not—linger around the foot of the stairs, screeching, snarling, swiping at air. Outside, infected shriek, pound at locked doors and windows. More find the open entrances, trickling inside as the minutes tick away as the three of them try to remember what it is to breathe.</p><p>“Hamilton, Madison, come help me get this bookcase,” Jefferson finally says, drained.</p><p>The two of them, too exhausted to do anything but agree, follow. It’s a ridiculously heavy fucking monster of a thing. Pushing it to the top of the stairwell takes just about all Hamilton has left in him—but at least they’ve got two layers of defense between them and the first floor.</p><p><em> Good, </em>he thinks, because there’s nineteen fucking infected downstairs now.</p><p>Out of ingrained anxious habit, Hamilton checks the top floor.</p><p>“I already made sure it was clear,” Jefferson sighs after him—but Hamilton checks again anyways.</p><p>A bathroom—empty. An old office—empty. A master bedroom—empty.</p><p>Not empty. Two bodies on the bed, decayed near to bone, empty bottles of pills on the nightstand. Hamilton looks away—not before he notices skin-stripped hands, fingers intertwined.</p><p>There’s one last room—a guest bedroom, it seems. That’s where the three of them converge, shutting and locking the door behind them. Jefferson moves a dresser, blocks it off. Hamilton staggers to the window, looks down through the heavy rain—a good fifteen, twenty foot drop. Questionable, but doable. Outside, infected shamble, dark shapes in the dying light.</p><p>He can’t calm down. Can’t stop planning. Can’t stop thinking.</p><p>“We’re not getting out of here before dark,” he says with a shake of his head. “The infected downstairs might wander out, but not for another few hours. If we’re lucky. So I wouldn’t fucking count on it.”</p><p>“Then we’ll stay here tonight and hope for the best,” Madison replies, running a hand over his face. </p><p>“How much ammo have y’all got?” Jefferson cuts in, shrugging off his sopping wet bag.</p><p>The three of them dig around. Hamilton has a clip and a half’s worth for his pistol. Jefferson has five shells for his shotgun, most of a clip for his handgun. Madison has the most ammo overall—but for his revolver, which is lost, buried in the mud somewhere miles away. With another upset shake of his head, Madison sets his bag aside, walks to a window.</p><p>“We’ll get you another gun,” Hamilton tries to comfort him. “Fuck, we’ve even got another revolver in the Escalade, don’t we?”</p><p>“That was a gift from my father. To celebrate my acceptance into law school,” Madison says, voice flat—and that’s why he’s upset. Another lost link to a past that they can’t get back.</p><p>So Hamilton tempers his disbelief, his want to wryly comment that Madison’s dad deemed a <em> gun </em> would be a good gift— <em> fucking Virginians, I swear to god.</em> Instead, his eyes flick to the gun in his hands—one of Laurens’ last gifts to him. When he thinks of losing it, he understands.</p><p>Jefferson joins Madison’s side and lays a hand on his shoulder.</p><p>Hamilton diverts his attention, studies their supplies: two, maybe three days’ worth. Then, muddy, sore, and soaking-wet, he strips out of his outer layers, lays them out to dry, goes to change into the clothes in his pack—but not carefully enough.</p><p>“My god,” Jefferson swears, eyes wide when Hamilton turns, worried.</p><p>Jefferson’s eyes are on Hamilton’s torn-up torso, following the nail-gouged lines that run from hip-to-hip, waistband-to-chest. Madison looks too, sickened.</p><p>“It’s fine,” Hamilton tries to brush them off, cringing beneath their stares. “Just give me some alcohol to clean them. I can take care of it.”</p><p>“Was that on the stairs?” Madison asks, the words seeming to cost him.</p><p>Only now, in his memories, Hamilton can see the pure, visceral terror on Jefferson’s face. The wild, frightened desperation in Madison’s. He wonders, then, just how loud he screamed before they made it to him. How long he screamed. If it looked like he was already gone. Like he was going to be ripped apart in front of them. Like they would be helpless.</p><p>And then, he wonders if it goes both ways: if the fear, the absolute abject terror he feels at losing them could go both ways, be the same for them.</p><p>“It’s not bad,” Hamilton says, avoiding the question. He looks at Jefferson. “How’s your leg?”</p><p>A cheap distraction.</p><p>“Fine,” Jefferson says, and they all know he’s lying, but no one calls him out.</p><p>The three of them wrench open a window, refill bottles with rainwater, wet rags to wipe themselves free of dirt. Hamilton cleans his stomach with still-shaking hands. Refuses to look up when he feels Madison’s eyes on him, inevitably wanting to offer help Hamilton doesn’t want to take.</p><p>“I think I skinned my whole fuckin’ ass when we went down that hill,” Jefferson complains as he coaxes dried mud out of his hair. “Miracle that I didn’t break my fucking neck.”</p><p>“That’s a real goddamn tragedy,” Hamilton dryly replies, needing a distraction.</p><p>“What, that I busted my ass or that I didn’t break my neck?”</p><p>“Guess it depends on how much of a jackass you feel like right now.”</p><p>Despite the exhaustion woven into his face, Jefferson manages a flicker of a smile, but there’s a strained quality to it. Hamilton looks away—looks back when Jefferson doesn’t think he’s watching any longer, notes the pained twist to Jefferson’s mouth, the way his nails dig into his thigh. He goes back to his own stomach, tries to keep from wincing. He foregoes bandages, tugs on a shirt.</p><p>He should be hungry, but he isn’t. He has to force himself to drink.</p><p>“I’m gonna call it early. Try to get some sleep. You two can take the bed,” Hamilton says when he’s gone through all the motions. He picks out a corner of the room. “I’ll take the floor.”</p><p>“Don’t be a dumbass. It’s a queen mattress,” Jefferson points out.</p><p>“Not drama-queen sized. I don’t want to get bitched at for stealing blankets.” He tips his head towards Madison. “Or punched in the jaw, ‘cause if that’s what you’ll do to your <em> boyfriend </em> while he’s sleeping, you’ll probably blow my whole fucking head off.”</p><p>“Then I’ll sleep in the middle and risk getting knocked senseless for both of us,” Madison offers, ever the diplomat.</p><p>“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” Hamilton says, fingers knotting in his pockets. “Really. The floor’s fine.”</p><p>“If it’s enough for you, then I suppose it’s fine enough for all of us,” Madison says, unassuming as ever save for the challenging glint in his eye. “Not to worry. I’ve slept in worse places.”</p><p>Hamilton’s jaw works, irritation mounting. He doesn’t need this—not right now. He’s strung-out, tired, can’t calm down. He doesn’t fucking need this—whatever <em> this </em>is. He just wants to lie down and pretend like he can sleep. What he doesn’t want is to shove himself to the side of a bed and think about why the hell he doesn’t belong. He’s had enough for one day.</p><p>“I don’t get why this is such a big sticking point. Bed, car, floor—it’s all the fucking same,” he argues, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.</p><p>“Hamilton,” Madison says, doing nothing but double down. “I’m exhausted.”</p><p>“So go the hell to sleep!”</p><p>Madison is bendable as steel and half as kind. Hamilton knows Madison is trying to do something good, trying to be merciful, trying to do him a favor—but he’s not. And Hamilton can’t explain that, not without giving away too much. They both wait for the other to give.</p><p>And from the corner of his eye, Hamilton sees Jefferson wince, visibly flinch, mouth slipping open in a silent gasp as his bad leg spasms. Hamilton’s jaw grits.</p><p>“Fine. Whatever.”</p><p>Muddy, sore, soaking-wet, the two of them strip out of their outer layers, change into whatever drier clothes they have. Because he’s an asshole, Jefferson elects to forego a shirt, just stumbles into bed with nothing but a pair of sweatpants. Madison gracefully goes next, and Hamilton reluctantly drops onto the far, far side of the bed, his back to them both.</p><p>It’s not quite fully dark out for another hour, by which time Madison and Jefferson have both shifted from shuffling and sighs to quiet breathing. The rain smacking the house isn’t quite enough to drown out the murmurs of the infected down below, and he stays alert, listening for any sounds of nearby footsteps. Behind him, Jefferson mumbles something unintelligible, shifts.</p><p>Hamilton stays stiff. Straight. Listens.</p><p>Keeps him from thinking about how he’s half an inch from falling off the side of the bed.</p><p>But the night wears on, and, despite his best efforts, Hamilton can’t keep his eyes open. He’s so goddamned tired. Too tired. So tired he eventually doesn’t even think about where he is.</p><p>He closes his eyes. Opens them. Closes them. Drifts off.</p><p>
  <em> yellowbloodyruninfectedbittenjohnrunpleasenodon’t </em>
</p><p>“Wake up, Alexander,” a voice murmurs, cool fingers covering the arc of his cheekbone.</p><p><em> Mmhuh, </em> he asks, too out of it to think better of leaning into the touch, blinking awake so hazily he might not even be awake at all. <em> Madison, </em>is all he coherently thinks.</p><p>“It was only a nightmare. We’re here. You’re safe,” Madison says, gentle, persuasive, and Hamilton is drowsy enough to believe it. “Go back to sleep.”</p><p>His eyes close.</p><p>Dark, imprecise, quiet are his dreams. Sometimes images appear from the dark, morph into shapes and scenes. Imprecise. Quiet. Dark. It’s hard to hold on. It all just slips straight through his fingers. Makes him cold. He tries to hold on. Reaches out. Holds on.</p><p>Wakes up again with someone pressed to his back, an arm loosely slung over his chest. Softly, someone breathes against the back of his neck, the rise and fall of their chest a steady rhythm. This time, Hamilton thinks nothing at all. Only feels: dazed, drowsy, safe.</p><p>He drifts back off.</p><p>Morning slides into the room. Streaks of pink and orange and red light the room until Hamilton can’t pretend he’s asleep any longer. Instinctively, he curls backwards, closer into the possessive grip of the sleeping frame behind him. The body stirs, makes a quiet half-awake sound, shifts again. There’s a pause, then a sharp, shocked inhale.</p><p>The words make sense when he says them.</p><p>“Mm, John?” Hamilton slurs out, still half-asleep. He opens his eyes. “What’s…”</p><p>The body behind him abruptly stills, stiffens.</p><p>Hamilton’s mind catches up with his mouth.</p><p>He yanks away, clumsily struggles out of the sheets and out of bed. The mad scrabble almost sends him flat on his face, but he doesn’t fucking care, fight-or-flight kicking in. The infected, he can fight. But how badly he’s just fucked up is something he can only run from.</p><p>The door is fucking blocked shut—<em>why did we do that, Jesus, why the fuck— </em>but he viciously shoulders the furniture out of the way, spills out into the hall. From behind him, Jefferson asks something slurred and confused Hamilton doesn’t hear.</p><p>Hamilton slams the door shut, stumbles through the second floor, only distantly aware of how his hands tremble at his side. Downstairs, the snarls of the infected are quiet. </p><p>
  <em> Think. Just fucking think. You can still think. </em>
</p><p>Hamilton stops, peers over the railing. There are less than last night, but still enough of a crowd that he needs to come up with a plan. They need a plan to get back to the Escalade, to where it sits in a garage, what? Half a dozen miles away? They need a plan.</p><p>Making one is almost enough to make him forget the crushing black hole in his chest.</p><p> </p><hr/><p>  </p><p>The plan works. They make do. The kills they rack up aren’t their most elegant: heavy shit dropped from overhead, crunching skulls and spines lingering below. Knives take out most of the stragglers; a few they take out with their low stores of ammo. They navigate back to the Escalade with a windy, complicated route, drive off without so much as a glance in the mirror.</p><p>Hamilton’s stomach, chest, torso hurts, but he blames it on the gouges.</p><p>He pretends to be asleep—like he’s not well-rested for the first time in. In a long time.</p><p>They stop at a diner. Hamilton tells them, no, his injuries are fine, no, it doesn’t hurt every time he breathes, thanks, hey, Jefferson, how’s your leg—?</p><p>He sleeps as far away from them as he can possibly fucking get.</p><p>Pretends to sleep. Doesn’t actually sleep.</p><p>At some point in the night, he gives up, slips outside to go for a walk. He loops a mile down the road, then walks two miles the other direction. A few infected meet him as he goes, but they’re all dispatched easily enough with his knife. </p><p>One moment, he’s looting the bodies of a pair of infected. The next, he turns around and finds Madison stealing up behind him.</p><p><em>“Shit,"</em> he swears once he’s no longer half a second from accidentally running Madison through. Angrily, he shakes his head. “What the fuck are you doing? I could’ve fucking shot you!”</p><p>“You didn’t,” Madison points out, and the impartialness in his voice grinds on Hamilton’s nerves.</p><p>“What the hell do you want?” he asks, knowing his lie is fucking awful even as he gives it. “I’m busy.”</p><p>Madison isn’t discouraged. He rarely is, even when Hamilton wants him to be. No, Madison is impartial as he steps forward, lays a hand on his shoulder. Hamilton tries not to, but he flinches anyways, steps away from the touch. It seems to burn.</p><p>“Come back. It worries me when you’re out alone in the middle of the night.”</p><p>
  <em> Don’t do that. Just leave me alone. </em>
</p><p>“Madison, please,” Hamilton pleads, throat dry, not even sure what he’s pleading for.</p><p>Madison’s eyes read his face, pick up the dozens of cues Hamilton doesn’t even know he’s giving away. At last, the shorter man’s hand drops back to his side. He steps back.</p><p>“Alexander,” he sighs.</p><p>There’s something about the way he says it that evokes a memory Hamilton can’t quite conjure. It reminds him of something—something, or someone? He sifts and searches through half-remembered moments but comes up empty-handed, is forced to give up when Madison keeps talking, voice measured, inoffensive, unaccusing.</p><p>“I don’t harbor any ill feelings for what happened yesterday.”</p><p>“Good, because I don’t want to talk about yesterday. I didn’t…it wasn’t—it was a fuck-up.”</p><p>“I never said it wasn’t. Only that it’s alright.”</p><p>Pity blooms behind Madison’s eyes, and it cuts something vulnerable beneath Hamilton’s skin. It <em> isn’t </em> alright. It isn’t <em> alright </em>. He fucking had it. Had that goddamn thing that hurts him so much, and it was an accident. A fuck-up. Not something he was meant to have.</p><p>Anger wells thick and dark from the wound, and—he forces it down. Takes a breath.</p><p>“Fuck, Madison, why did you even care?” he asks, chest aching. “Why do you even give a shit if I sleep on the floor or not? It wasn’t a big deal. I mean it when I said it didn’t matter. I wasn’t offering out of kindness. I <em> wanted </em>to sleep there. Let you and Jefferson have the bed.”</p><p>“Don’t you understand?” Madison sighs. “That was the reason I pushed in the first place.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Madison steps forward, shaking his head.</p><p>“I’m not oblivious. I know how you feel.” <em> You couldn’t. </em>“You aren’t on the outside, Hamilton. I know you believe otherwise. I see it in your face every damn day, but the narrative you write for yourself isn’t reality, Alexander.”</p><p>As the moment wears on, Hamilton slowly isn’t quite sure what to say at all.</p><p>Pieces slot into place: in his memories, there’s Madison, making him coffee just so he has to sit down at breakfast, even when he doesn’t want to eat. Madison, steering conversations towards subjects he can speak on. Madison, teaching him about opera, wines, all the finer things, so that he <em> can </em>speak on them. Trying to make Hamilton feel included.</p><p>Even in moments when he doesn’t deserve to be.</p><p>But Madison goes too far, and in doing so, he pushes Hamilton towards the exact thing he’s trying to avoid in the first place.</p><p>How does Hamilton tell him that? How does Hamilton tell him that the problem is that no matter how much they care for him, that no matter how strong their friendship is, he will never be, can never be on the inside? That no matter how much they care about him, they can’t fill the aching, hurting black hole in his chest? That, shit, they—them, the <em> them </em> next to Hamilton’s <em> me—</em>are why it exists in the first place?</p><p>“I love Thomas dearly, but despite what you believe, you are not second-best to him. I care about you every bit as much. It’s merely...” At a rare loss for words, Madison stops, face twisting. “Different,” he finishes at last, like Hamilton hasn’t known that for as long as he’s been with them both.</p><p>“You don’t mean that,” Hamilton says, voice weak. “I know you can’t. And that’s fine. Really. I get it.”</p><p>Madison steps forward again, holds Hamilton’s gaze for an uncomfortably long moment, tries to convey something that Hamilton won’t, can’t believe.</p><p>“You are not expendable, Alexander—immunity be damned. I don’t know what more I can do to convince you of that.”</p><p>“Stop,” Hamilton tells him, heart withering in his chest. Madison is trying to give him an illusion, and it’ll bring nothing but hurt. It doesn’t matter if he wants to take it anyway. “Please. Just stop.”</p><p>Madison can care about him. Madison can and is his friend. Madison can even be willing to die for him—but he can’t care about him anywhere close to the way he cares about Jefferson. To tell Hamilton otherwise is cruelty. Dangling something in his face that isn’t his to have. Madison can’t see the way he looks at Jefferson, but Hamilton does.</p><p>And he knows that Madison doesn’t look at him the same way.</p><p>“I get it,” Hamilton says, turning away when he can’t meet Madison’s eyes a moment longer. “And it’s alright. Not something you’ve got to feel guilty over. Just let it go.”</p><p>“Alexander—”</p><p>“Please.”</p><p>There’s a long silence. Madison at last shakes his head.</p><p>“I won’t let you sleep on the floor,” he says, voice final. “End of story.”</p><p>And with that, Madison leaves him.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton is glad Madison and Jefferson are happy together. He’s glad they have each other. Jefferson and Madison are his friends. He would take a bullet or worse for either of them, and he has. He’s happy for them. He’s thankful that they don’t know what the black hole behind his ribcage feels like whenever it makes itself known. He’s thankful they still have a hand to hold, someone to hold them at night—and that it’s not accidental, not a mistake, that there’s never a moment of confusion about just who’s beside them when they wake up.</p><p>He is.</p><p>(But it hurts).</p><p>He tells himself all those things when it does. Tells himself he would never wish anything otherwise. Tells himself that it is what it is, and if it hurts, that’s on him, not them.</p><p>It doesn’t stop it from hurting more.</p><p>(Why does it hurt more? Why does it not hurt less?)</p><p>He’s happy for them. He is.</p><p>(But, Christ, something takes a knife to his ribs, cuts the black hole open wider, lets it spill out, lets it spill into his chest, his heart, his throat—)</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Sometimes Hamilton doesn’t know if he misses Laurens more or the feeling of waking up with someone else at his side. Someone to bear the weight with him. Someone who looks at him like he hung the moon in the sky, and someone he can look at like they hung the sun.</p><p>Sometimes, it’s undeniably Laurens.</p><p>Sometimes, he’s not so sure.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It takes them the better part of a month to make it to Montpelier.</p><p>Even before they enter, Hamilton knows it’s going to be bad. They all do.</p><p>The estate is still standing, spared from Monticello’s fate, but the windows that aren’t boarded up are busted out and smeared with brown, there're dozens and dozens of dead infected in the overgrown yard, and, as they get closer, Hamilton can see bullet holes punching through the walls, the doors, the everything.</p><p>It’s a clusterfuck, and it was the site of a last stand, and Hamilton knows as well as Madison and Jefferson that not everyone made it out.</p><p>Jefferson forces the front door open; bodies piled in front block the way.</p><p>Leftover infected swarm instantly. They fall back through the door until the things rush through. With the choke point, the three of them shoot infected like fish in a barrel until no more come. The bodies are piled so high now that they go to find a smashed-out window rather than try to wade through the stack. Hamilton, distantly, thinks that they haven’t said a single word since they first pulled up the drive.</p><p>The smell hits Hamilton first: decay and rot and the distinctive smell of death. He can’t see the Schuylers’ estate in his mind any longer, can’t see the Schuyer sisters’ face, but the smell of the estate has never left him.</p><p>It smells like that.</p><p>An infected crawls towards them with shot-out legs, snarling and snapping with jagged teeth, its face rendered almost unrecognizably human by fungus. Madison’s mind is elsewhere as he looks impassively around, and a worried Jefferson’s attention is on Madison, so Hamilton takes care of it, dispatches it with a knife to the base of its skull. </p><p>It occurs to him as he does it that this could easily be one of Madison’s siblings, that he’s just offed one of them without even knowing.</p><p>With the infection so advanced, would Madison know?</p><p>The thought makes him vaguely nauseous.</p><p>Hamilton wants to wait outside, wants to escape the oppressive air settled over them. There’s so many fucking bodies, undoubtedly so many bodies left for them to find. The thought of sifting through them all fills him with dread—and, worse, he can’t even be of any help identifying them all. The hardest task is the one that Madison has to do himself.    </p><p>And, once the bottom floor estate is relatively cleared, he does.</p><p>Body by body, one by one, Madison looks. Turns them over, tries to make sense of their faces, their statures, their clothes. Wordlessly, Jefferson helps as best he can; Hamilton keeps watch, picks off the occasional lingering infected drawn to them from further inside the house.</p><p>“I don’t think I recognize any of these,” Madison says at last, keeping his voice measured and guarded against false hope; disappointment fresh on the tailcoats of hope always hurts worse.</p><p>Hamilton takes point as they climb upstairs. Summer has heated the second floor to near boiling point as if to match the atmosphere. Hamilton redoes his bun, pulls sweat-sticky hair off of his neck. Jefferson follows suit—more to do something with his hands, Hamilton thinks, to give himself something to fidget with.</p><p>An infected at the end of the second-floor hall<em> clicks, </em> and Hamilton glances sideways to Jefferson, draws it over with a snap of his fingers. With a tilt of its head, the clicker shambles blindly towards them. Jefferson looks at Madison: <em> no, </em> Madison says with a shake of his head, a frown, <em> I don’t know that one. </em>And so, at the ten-foot mark, Jefferson’s shotgun cracks. Headless, the body crumples. Without ceremony, they move on.</p><p>Madison stops them in front of a dark wooden door.</p><p>Hamilton glances between Jefferson and Madison, trying to pick up on whatever cues he’s missing. Only Jefferson catches his eye, concern clear across his face.</p><p>With a heavy exhale, Madison pushes open the door.</p><p>A room bigger than his entire fucking New York apartment greets them. The room is plain and sparsely decorated: pale grey walls, a dark wood desk, an upright piano in the corner, a wall-spanning bookshelf, a mantle lined with neatly arranged awards. Books lie open-faced on every available surface, but otherwise, the room is without personality. Hamilton follows Madison into the room and stops to examine the few framed photos decorating a wall.</p><p>He blinks at the well-dressed, serious-faced teenager looking back, only belatedly recognizing him as Madison. It takes him longer to realize that the boy next to him is Jefferson, but the smug fucking look on his face and gaudy suit are unmistakable. Jefferson joins him, sucks a soft breath in through his teeth. Hamilton looks at the picture. Can’t help but to notice how Jefferson’s arm is slung innocently over Madison’s shoulder, pulling him close. The gesture seems innocent, perfectly friendly, but somehow, Hamilton knows it isn’t.</p><p>“Fuck. That was, what, ’97? Jesus. I wasn’t even fucking legal yet,” he murmurs to Hamilton. Like that, Jefferson’s face contorts into something tight and upset. He reaches out, pulls the frame off the wall. “Goddamn,” he swears, sorrowful. “I don’t even have pictures of us anymore. These are all that’re left.”</p><p>Hamilton thinks of how he only has one, and his throat stings so much he has to walk away. He leaves Jefferson to reminisce, turns to the rest of the room. If it weren’t for the thick layer of dust, the smell of death seeping in from beneath the door, Hamilton could easily believe Madison had only stepped out for a moment instead of years. </p><p>Here, he feels, is safe.</p><p>It’s irrational, inexplicable, but the thought strikes him nevertheless.</p><p>Hamilton joins Madison by the ceiling-high bookshelf, examining the books. It’s hardly light reading—hundreds and hundreds of books on ancient governments, politics, law. If the yellowed pages and covers are anything to go by, half of the books are probably older than the three of them put together. He looks, and he does, Madison’s fingers skim over the spines, stopping on a faded, purple-bound book.</p><p>He pulls it out, opens it up. There’s a hollowed-out compartment inside—full of letters, photos, old ripped pages. Something soft and tainted by sadness wells up behind Madison’s eyes, and Hamilton, suddenly, has never felt like more of an intruder.</p><p>Here he is, surrounded by memories that aren’t his, that he has no right to see, let alone know. This is their old lives, their history—history that isn’t his, that doesn’t even concern him at all. Madison’s room is somewhere safe, some piece of a forgotten past he never belonged to, and he doesn’t belong. He doesn’t belong here.</p><p>Hamilton steps back, clears the lump out of his throat.</p><p>“I’m going to clear the rest of the floor,” he says.</p><p>Madison, distracted, looks up from the twine-wrapped letters in his hand, nods. Jefferson’s eyes linger on him a moment longer, but Hamilton goes before he can decide to voice a protest.</p><p>The second floor is quieter than the first, but he finds a couple more infected milling around as he glances into rooms. Bedrooms. He refuses to notice that some are brightly painted, scattered with toys instead of books. The infected, at least, aren’t the owners of those rooms. It’s easier enough to take them out—quiet footsteps, knives to necks. He works his way through the floor, down a hall that leads to two massive, painstakingly carved doors at the end.</p><p>The doors loom well over his head, stare imposingly down.</p><p>Hamilton stands in front of them a moment, presses his ear to them—silence. Of course, that’s no guarantee there’s nothing on the other side, so he eases them open gradually.</p><p>The smell of old paper and dust hits him first, a comparatively bright reprieve from death and rot. Nothing inside moves, so he slides through, shuts himself in.</p><p>It’s a study—velvety, rich, filled with dark woods and antique furniture. Ceiling-high bookshelves line the walls, and light streams in from arching windows. Towards the middle of the room sits a colossal desk, bare save for a few miscellaneous things: letter openers, picture frames, pens. He edges towards the desk, picks up an engraved pen: <em> James Madison Sr. </em></p><p>Madison’s dad, then. </p><p>Like everyone else, Hamilton can’t picture the man’s face, but he remembers his name, his politics: a career politician—like Madison—a separatist—like Madison—an even-tempered, impassive, brilliant man—like Madison. A Virginian representative—almost an ambassador. Would’ve been an ambassador if it hadn’t been for the—stroke? Heart attack? </p><p>Hamilton can’t quite remember. Either way, he was dead long before the outbreak, and it doesn’t look like his office has been disturbed since. For want of a distraction, Hamilton walks through the room, picking books off shelves, examining art and artifacts.</p><p>He finally comes to the desk, hesitates before sinking into the plush seat behind it. His hands come to a rest atop the table, and for a moment, he sees the future he should’ve had. His heart blisters and aches in his chest.</p><p>He pictures himself in the capital in Philadelphia, at a desk not unlike this one, hears a knock at the door, looks over, sees—sees Jefferson and Madison as they enter.</p><p><em> Coworkers, </em>he thinks, rolling the word around in his mind, testing the sound of it.</p><p>He sits back.</p><p>They would’ve fucked hated each other—no contest. Even now, Hamilton and Jefferson can argue about politics and policies that haven’t existed in years. In the heat of the moment? Fuck, he imagines they would’ve come within half a step of strangling each other every Cabinet meeting. Probably would’ve fucking blackmailed each other if they’d ever gotten the chance.</p><p>But if he had the chance to take that over this, wouldn’t he?</p><p>Wouldn’t they?</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton spends a few minutes with his eyes shut, then leans forward and begins to scavenge. There’s nothing particularly interesting in the first few drawers: pens and old documents and planners. The last drawer on the left side is locked, unresponsive to Hamilton’s tugs. He looks at the look a minute, then roots through the desk until he finds paper clips thin enough to pick it. It’s slow work, but he’s been practicing lockpicking lately, been getting better.</p><p>The lock clicks open after a few minutes, and Hamilton pulls open the drawer. A massive revolver with <em> Smith and Wesson </em>engraved on the side catches his attention first. It’s heavy, almost too big for him to hold, but the barrel’s so wide it has to have almost the stopping power as a shotgun shotgun. He slides the gun and ammo into his pack, makes a note to give it to Madison later, then keeps rummaging.</p><p>Mostly, the drawer is filled with letters arranged by sender and bound by twine. Hamilton finds a thick stack from a Lord North, a Robespierre, fucking <em>Washington, </em>early-in-his-career-George-fucking-Washington and—Hamilton pauses here—a Mr. Jefferson. Not Thomas, he realizes as he thumbs over the return address—but Peter.</p><p><em> Peter Jefferson, </em>Hamilton thinks—he remembers even less about Jefferson’s dad than Madison’s, but from what he remembers, the man died relatively young. Some kind of accident. </p><p>Distracted by scouring his memory as he is, Hamilton almost misses the stack of letters tucked far into the back, hidden in the drawer's bowels.</p><p><em> Thomas Jefferson, </em> the stamp in the top right corner reads, <em> UVA. </em> And then a few letters further than that: <em> Thomas Jefferson, UVA Law School. </em> Only a handful have been opened; others are still sealed, all dated nearly a decade ago. Still, what catches Hamilton’s attention most isn’t Jefferson’s name, isn’t even the return address, but the addressee: <em> James Madison Jr., Montpelier. </em></p><p>Hamilton stares at the stack, thoughts slowing to a trickle.</p><p>He shouldn’t.</p><p>(He wonders if Madison knows about the letters).</p><p>He really fucking shouldn’t.</p><p>(Surely Madison doesn’t—not if they’re stuffed in the back of his father’s desk, not if they’ve been stuffed back there for a decade or more).</p><p>He really, really fucking shouldn’t.</p><p>Hamilton reaches forward, takes the oldest letter—October 17th, 2001. Delicately, he unfolds the expensive piece of paper inside, skimming over Jefferson’s thin, spidery cursive long before he ever actually reads the words.</p><p>October 12th, 2001:</p><p>
  <em> Jemmy, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I don’t know why you won’t answer my calls—just write to me then. Look, I don’t know what the hell I did, but it must’ve been something. Just tell me what it is. We can work this out. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> It’s you and me against the world, isn’t it? So where the fuck are you? </em>
</p><p><em> Y </em> <em> ours, </em></p><p>
  <em> Thomas. </em>
</p><p>With his mind elsewhere, Hamilton delicately replaces the paper, eyes vaguely focused on the thick stack still before him. Hesitantly, more unsure than ever, he picks another off the stack, reads.</p><p>October 29th, 2001:</p><p>
  <em> Come on. It’s been three weeks. You can’t just ignore me forever. Please, just talk to— </em>
</p><p>November 17th, 2001:</p><p>
  <em> I don’t fucking get it. I think about it all the damn time, and I just don’t fucking get it— </em>
</p><p>January 2nd, 2002:</p><p>
  <em> Is that it? Twenty-seconds, and we’re done? I wasted four fucking years on someone that doesn’t even have the fucking backbone to dump me to my face? I— </em>
</p><p>And a dozen others left unopened in-between.</p><p>Hamilton turns the letters over and over in his hand. The last of them is opened, dated long after the second-most recent. He thinks, then figures he’s in too fucking deep for it to matter. The handwriting on this one is different—no spidery curse, no looping letters. It’s written in sloppy print. Words drift from one line to another, intersecting, overlapping. The address too is clearly drunken, only just barely legible enough to have ended up in the right place.</p><p>Hamilton reads.</p><p>September 28th, 2002:</p><p><strike> <em> Jemmy </em> </strike> <em> Madison, </em></p><p>
  <em> I’m sure you’ve heard by now, but my father was in an accident. </em>
</p><p><strike> <em> I know we’re I know that Things are I wish you would </em> </strike> <em> <strike>.</strike> If you have no conflicting obligations, your attendance at the funeral would be appreciated. </em></p><p><em> Let me know if you received this letter. I </em> <strike> <em> don’t know what the fuck you want me to say </em> </strike></p><p>
  <em> Cordially, </em>
</p><p>
  <em> T. Jefferson </em>
</p><p>
  <strike> <em> I’m still fucking in </em>  </strike>
</p><p>The door pushes open. Without thinking, Hamilton snatches the stack of letters, shoves them into his pocket just in time. Jefferson steps inside.</p><p>“There you are,” he says, something that might almost be relief splashing onto his face. He walks into the room. His eyes falling onto the other stacks of letters still left on the desk, and his brows raise. “Going through his shit?”</p><p>Jefferson picks up a stack, reads the name, takes another, interest pricking in his eyes.</p><p>“Did you know his dad?” Hamilton asks as Jefferson looks, his voice carefully neutral.</p><p>“Sure,” Jefferson answers, only half-paying attention. “When we were in school, I used to come home with Madison during the holidays. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter. Whenever.”</p><p>The stack with Peter Jefferson emblazoned on the top left corner finds its way into Jefferson’s hands. Jefferson’s face flattens, descending into detachment. He peels open the top of a letter, withdraws the paper inside and begins to read. Within moments, his mouth twists into a thin, angry line.</p><p>“Oh, would you look at that? He actually mentioned me,” Jefferson scowls. “Just long enough to bitch about everything he thought I was fucking up.”</p><p>“No lost love?”</p><p>“Mm. Funny story—when I was seven, he forgot my birthday. And instead of, you know, fucking <em> apologizing,</em> he told me that my birthday was actually a week later than it is.” Jefferson looks up, mouth twisting into something that could be a smile if it weren’t for hidden hurt. “And I believed him. Didn’t know when it actually was until I got my passport renewed five years later.”</p><p>For a moment, he looks hurt, vulnerable—and then it’s gone.</p><p>“He always fuckin’ busy. Always working. Always travelling the world.” Jefferson’s voice is laden with undisguised bitterness, something that approaches outright hatred as he goes on. “Whatever—I still saw him more than—" <em> Lafayette, </em>Hamilton’s mind finishes when Jefferson stops mid-sentence and doesn’t finish. “It doesn’t matter,” Jefferson says a second later, tossing down the letter. “He doesn’t fucking matter. I did just fuckin’ fine on my own.”</p><p>Hamilton shifts, acutely aware of the contents in his pocket. Guilty.</p><p>“Did he, uh, know about you and Madison?”</p><p>“Are you shitting me? He couldn’t have <em> paid </em>me to tell him a damn thing about my personal life.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, what about Madison’s dad?”</p><p>Jefferson pauses, the set of his shoulders edging towards uncomfortable. </p><p>“Madison was closer to his family than I ever was, but he—mm. Didn’t like to talk about that kind of thing. His prerogative.”</p><p>Fucking fantastic.</p><p>Hamilton’s backed himself into a fucking corner, walked right into a fucking minefield of old mines, mines that he can’t even be sure will explode—but that easily might. He knows Jefferson still doesn’t know why the hell Madison dumped him. He knows now that Jefferson doesn’t know that Madison’s father knew—and Hamilton isn’t even sure that Madison knew his father knew. All Hamilton knows for sure is that the senior Madison had to know. If he didn’t know before he intercepted Madison’s mail, he sure as fuck had to know then.</p><p>But which of them is Hamilton supposed to tell? And what happens then?</p><p>There’s a missing piece, he realizes after a moment.</p><p>Madison’s hollowed-out book.</p><p>Madison had other letters from Jefferson. That mail came through without going to his father’s desk first. But those letters would’ve been actual letters, actual back-and-forths—not the desperate, pleading things Jefferson penned. The difference is in the dates.</p><p>Madison has the letters from before their breakup; Madison’s father has the ones from after. Hamilton’s hands fidget at his sides. Madison’s dad knew—but only knew for certain after they split up. The information doesn’t say everything, but it certainly fucking speaks, and, suddenly, Hamilton feels like he knows more about what happened than Jefferson himself.</p><p>Jefferson circles the room; Hamilton watches.</p><p>Is it better to know? What even is there to know?</p><p>Hamilton thinks.</p><p>And decides that, whatever the truth may be, it’s better left alone. Madison and Jefferson are in a good place. What good is digging up the past? What reason is there to risk fucking up they best thing the two of them have? Some things are better left unknown.</p><p>There are things Hamilton wishes he could unknow. </p><p>Places. People. The past.</p><p>Scars—above all, the scar on his neck.</p><p>Some things are better left unknown.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Face grim, Madison finds them.</p><p>“I found someone I know,” he tells them—and, if there was a chance Hamilton was going to change his mind, it’s lost.</p><p>It’s not someone from his family, Madison tells them as he leads them out of the study, down the hall—but his voice is still heavy, implies that it may as well be. It’s their family’s governess, he tells Hamilton—the one that taught all the children through grade school, himself included. Jefferson takes his hand as he talks, rubs quiet circles into his wrist.</p><p>Hamilton wraps the body (badly decayed, more like a high-budget Halloween prop than something that used to be a person) in sheets, lifts it easily (not much left but bones), and then they go. </p><p>Their family plot is half a mile away, Madison tells him, leading them out the back of the estate, through overgrown gardens, through clusters of brightly-flowered trees, into an old clearing. Crumbling, illegible headstones nearly trip Hamilton as they make their way further into the burial plot. He’s so focused on trying not to lose his footing that he doesn’t notice Madison coming to a halt, almost walks right into his back.</p><p>Hamilton stops just in time, looks over Madison’s shoulder.</p><p>This is where the bodies are. Not in the estate. No. No, the bodies are already buried.</p><p>Hamilton knows none of the names whittled across the fronts, but Jefferson does.</p><p>Madison does.</p><p>And Hamilton recognizes the shared last name—knows what that means.</p><p>One grave is more overgrown than all the others, half-buried beneath clusters of colorful wildflowers and wilted roses. The headstone—if it can be called that, since it’s really little more than two branches crudely lashed together in the shape of a cross—is concealed beneath clumps of orange-flowered vines. Madison steps forward hesitantly, takes a knot of vines in his hands and tears until the name carved into the cross is revealed.</p><p>
  <em> Jemmy. </em>
</p><p>Madison steps back. Steps back again. Eyes wide. Surprised. <em> Oh, </em>he says.</p><p>It’s the most and least emotion Hamilton’s ever heard in a word at the same time.</p><p>Hamilton can’t imagine what’s going through his head, but he can imagine. He can imagine a scene: a family, seated around a TV, proud, smiling—a family, horrified, as what’s on the screen descends into chaos, crying as news come in about Philadelphia, <em> no one made it out alive, they’re all dead, I’m sorry, he’s gone— </em></p><p>Maybe Madison’s thinking the same things. Maybe he’s not. Hamilton can’t tell.</p><p>Jefferson can’t either, it seems, because he merely stands, looks horrified at the cross. When Madison steps back a third time, only then Jefferson recovers, sweeps to his side.</p><p>(A yellow sky roils overhead; waves crash against the sand).</p><p>Hamilton stands frozen.</p><p>(Did Laurens want to be buried? Did Hamilton ever ask?)</p><p>“Oh,” Madison says again. </p><p>With faintly trembling fingers, he finally reaches forwards, brushes away more of the flowers. A silver chain hangs around the left end of the tombstone, and, delicately, methodically, he disentangles it, pulls it off, lets his fingers curl around the chain, the sapphire teardrop.</p><p>“Dolley—my friend—was here once. When she buried me, I suppose,” he finally explains to Hamilton, voice distant and detached, but in a drifting kind of way, not the indifferent way Madison has mastered so well. “I gave this to her when we graduated.”</p><p>Slowly, Madison works his eyes away from the marker, necklace still clutched in-hand, his eyes averted from his name, from his own grave—abandoned, overgrown, empty.</p><p>They start to dig.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>There’s a grave right next to Madison’s, but they don’t mention that one. Madison inevitably saw it. Jefferson, inevitably, saw it. There was no way they could’ve missed it.</p><p>They don’t mention it, but it stays on Hamilton’s mind.</p><p>He can’t tell whether it stays on theirs or whether it’s any of the other dozen things weighing down that makes the walk back to the house unbearably silent, but it stays on his mind.</p><p>
  <em> Thomas. </em>
</p><p>Thomas: a second empty grave next to Madison’s. A second necklace looped around the cross. His eyes slide to Jefferson.</p><p>If Jefferson is thinking about it, it’s impossible to tell.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It’s less impossible to tell later.</p><p>Hamilton can’t sleep—no surprise. What is surprising is that it’s because of the silence, something that would usually be the opposite of a problem.</p><p>These days, he’s too fucking unused to silence.</p><p>Before the outbreak, there was never a second of quiet in New York. It was always something. Pages turning in a library. The hum of the Hercules’ sewing machine. Cars honking outside. Clanking from the kitchen as Laurens bustled around. When the world screeched to a halt, all that stopped. For the first time in his life, it was quiet. </p><p>Silent when Laurens died.</p><p>He got used to it.</p><p>And then Jefferson and Madison reminded him of what quiet sounded like, of how comforting the low-grade hum of other people could be.</p><p>Tonight, there was nothing.</p><p>Silence.</p><p>Silence, Hamilton thinks, that was too fucking loud.</p><p>Hamilton can’t sleep, so he rolls out of the bed—an old guest room—and wanders through the dark until the tombstones come into view. A dark shadow stands there waiting; Hamilton’s hand drops to his gun before the shape turns, sighs.</p><p>Something golden glints in his hand.</p><p>“You saw it too, huh?” Jefferson asks, looking away.</p><p>“Let me see,” Hamilton flatly says, motioning towards Jefferson’s hand.</p><p>Jefferson looks over. Stays still a long time. And then, at last, his fist loosens.</p><p>The fine gold chain glimmers in the light, and when Hamilton’s eyes fall to the charms—one the outline of Virginia, the other of New York—he’s certain.</p><p>“That’s Angelica’s,” he says, voice flat, the suspicion from earlier becoming certainty—certainty he doesn’t know what to do with.</p><p>“I would fuckin’ know. I gave it to her. It was our first anniversary.” Jefferson shakes his head once, blows out a harsh, grating breath. “Goddamn. You know what fucking gets to me? That she was one of the last people I talked to before—” He motions wildly, shakes his head again. The motion is so vicious Hamilton’s half-afraid he’s going to snap a vertebra. “We never got to have that fucking lunch, and she thought she and Dolley and whoever else was here thought they had to bury me. And, Christ, that’s on me, isn’t it? If I’d just shown up somewhere after Philadelphia, let everyone know I was alive, then—”</p><p>He storms forward, lifts his foot—then stops mid-motion, like the gesture alone has exhausted him too much to go through with kicking the marker down. Slowly, his foot drops back to the ground.</p><p>“And I didn’t have a fucking choice,” he says, tired. “Redcoats would’ve... but it didn’t even matter in the end, huh? Didn’t fuckin’ matter.”</p><p>Hamilton thinks back, and he remembers Jefferson holding upright as he tearlessly sobs. His tongue wets his lips, but he carefully moves closer, lets an arm loop lightly around Jefferson’s side. Tired, Jefferson sighs. Leans over. </p><p><em> Because of the bad leg, </em>Hamilton thinks, even though Jefferson is walking well, runs alright, only grimaces every now and then—after clearing a jump, after running too long.</p><p>The silence is profound. It weighs heavily, crushingly. But with four shoulders to bear the weight, they’re at least not crumbling beneath the pressure.</p><p>Six might even make it alright. </p><p>When Jefferson at last moves away, Hamilton’s sense of gravity shifts abrupt, hard without the weight on his side.</p><p>(Why does that, of all things, send loneliness shuddering down his spine like lightning?)</p><p>“Fuck it,” Jefferson says, stalking towards his grave, a knife suddenly in hand. “I’m not dead, and the whole fucking country already knows it. May as well make the tombstone match.” He pauses. When he speaks again, it’s quieter. “And, fuck, maybe they’ll come back.”</p><p>With that, he takes the tip of his knife to the wood, hacking a thick slash through <em> Thomas. </em> Painstakingly, below that, he carves two more words—<em>not dead— </em> and a date— <em> 5/13. </em> He does the same for Madison’s, then steps back, considers them both. Without looking over, he speaks.</p><p>“There’s five of his siblings not buried here. Doesn’t mean they’re alive. But Dolley, Angelica—whoever got here, buried them first—whoever it was didn’t find the others.”</p><p>Hamilton does the math.</p><p>“There’s more than six new graves,” he says, voice quiet.</p><p>Jefferson’s shoulders fall.</p><p>“Everyone came to… during the inauguration.” Parents. Aunts. Uncles. Nieces. Nephews. Heavily, Jefferson looks over, then sweeps his hand towards the graves. His smile is the furthest thing from a smile Hamilton has ever seen. “Guess now he knows.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>They can’t find Madison.</p><p>And when the confusion in Jefferson’s face starts to give way to something visceral, something terrified, Hamilton feels it just as deeply—but he’s much better than Jefferson at managing that kind of thing, shoves it down, keeps a straight face, thinks.</p><p>“The Escalade is still here,” he says. “He’s either here, or he’s on foot—which means he isn’t far.”</p><p>Jefferson nods tightly, doesn’t speak. </p><p>Nothing in the bedrooms, the studies, the living rooms, the library—<em> the library, </em>Hamilton inappropriately thinks, some part of his old self resurfacing through fear to spend half a second dreamy-eyed. He forces it away, keeps looking. </p><p>Garage, empty. Home theater, empty. Gym, empty.</p><p>“Fuck,” Jefferson realizes as they come up empty-handed yet again. “The wine cellar!”</p><p>“Sorry, the what<em> ?” </em>Hamilton asks, but he has to hurry after Jefferson before he gets an answer.</p><p>With guns raised, they creep down into a blessedly cool, not-so-blessedly pitch-black basement. Jefferson lights the way with a shoulder-mounted flashlight, Hamilton with a flashlight held between his teeth. Every one of his muscles is tightly coiled, every one of his nerves set alight—<em> don’t do it, don’t go into the creepy fucking basement, you’ve watched horror movies, Jesus Christ, you’re going to die like a fucking moron— </em>but he follows Jefferson anyways.</p><p>Shelves of wine arranged by year line the walls, glinting in the beams of their flashlights. The cool air quickly seems to turn chilly, and Hamilton turns each corner anxiously. Jefferson takes the lead, guiding them through a maze of shelves and tight corners until, finally, they reach—a door. A door, seemingly misplaced, at the end of a basement hall.</p><p>Hamilton blinks.</p><p>He doesn’t know where the hell a door from a secluded wine cellar might lead but given what he knows of rich people, he’s inclined not to fucking open it. Jefferson has no such qualms, apparently, because he steps forward, slowly eases it open without knocking.</p><p>The room inside is, surprisingly, lit. Not with sunlight, not with candles, not with flashlights—no, the overhead lights bathe the room in warm light.</p><p>That’s the first thing Hamilton notices. He doesn’t spend much time on the revelation, though. His eyes land on Madison on the opposite end of the room. Madison sits before a piano with his back to them, one hand in his lap, the other laid on the fall board. He hears the door open, hears Jefferson step inside—his head tilts ever-so-slightly-sideways—but he doesn’t turn.</p><p>“No one ever turned on the generator,” Madison explains, too measured. “There was still gas. You ought to go turn on the water heater. Go and take a hot shower.”</p><p>“Would be nice,” Jefferson replies, slow, careful, assessing. “Would you join me?”</p><p>“I’m thinking,” Madison declines. His hands move to rest over the keys. Without ever pressing down, his fingers move thoughtfully over them, playing silently.</p><p>“Jemmy,” Jefferson pleads, stepping towards him.</p><p>Madison’s shoulders tighten, posture defensive. Still, he refuses to turn around.</p><p>Hamilton wonders then if he’s crying—but he’s seen Madison cry before. Or seem him after crying that once, at least. Madison has cried in front of Jefferson, certainly.</p><p>So there has to be something, something on his face or in his eyes that’ll give him away if he turns around. Something he’s trying to protect Jefferson from seeing. Hamilton wants to do the same, wants to protect Jefferson too.</p><p>But the thought of leaving him here while he’s hurting, hurting so fucking bad he won’t even let Thomas, <em> Thomas, </em> the goddamn love of his life, won’t even let Thomas <em> look </em>at him—</p><p>Hamilton, briefly, is torn between the two of them, between deciding who to protect.</p><p><em> Like you could even fucking protect either, </em>his mind snarls, unhelpful, blaming.</p><p>“Jemmy,” Jefferson tries again, but he stays still. <em> “S </em> <em> 'il te plait regarde moi.” </em></p><p>Of course Jefferson knows too. Jefferson has known Madison years longer than him. Of course Jefferson would know why Madison won’t turn around.</p><p>“Please, Thomas,” Madison says in English—a response Hamilton is meant to hear, a plea to him, not to Jefferson. “I would rather be alone.”</p><p>Hamilton at last reaches forward, touches Jefferson’s arm. His hand is instantly and angrily shrugged off, and Jefferson seems to think about crossing the rest of the room anyways, Madison’s words be damn—but then he looks to Hamilton.</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t know what Jefferson sees on his face. Maybe he doesn’t want to know.</p><p>But whatever it is, it’s enough.</p><p>Miserably, wordlessly, Jefferson leaves.</p><p>Hamilton lingers a second longer after he’s gone.</p><p>“I found…” he says, and up until he finishes the sentence, he doesn’t know where it’s going to go. “… a revolver in your dad’s desk. I think it was his. I thought you could, you know, use it. Because of the old one. I’ll, uh… I’ll just leave it here.”</p><p>He does—and just before he leaves, Madison so quiet he doesn’t hear, Madison calls,</p><p>“Hamilton?”</p><p>He stills.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>Silence stretches on for a lifetime. At last, Madison’s fingers strike several keys—discordant, confused, lost. Hamilton doesn’t know quite what to make of them. He isn’t sure Madison knows either.</p><p>“Never mind,” Madison exhales, shaking his head. “My thoughts are… It slipped away from me.”</p><p><em> He’s lying, </em>Hamilton thinks, and it comes as a surprise that he can tell.</p><p>Maybe he should push. Maybe he should stay. Maybe he should do a lot of things, but there’s always such a goddamn complicated tangle, always so many ways he can fuck up.</p><p>So maybe he should do something differently, but he doesn’t.</p><p>He leaves.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Like a ghost, Hamilton wanders. There’s nowhere he can go to escape the silence. It makes sense, then, that like a moth to light, he finds the last place where there isn’t silence.</p><p>Jefferson lays across a weight bench, hair pulled back, gasping for breath as Hamilton enters the gym. He’s drenched in sweat, face twisted in pain, a ridiculously laden barbell racked above him. There’s nothing vain or indulgent about it for once; Jefferson doesn’t even look to Hamilton as he enters.</p><p>“You don’t look so hot.”</p><p>“Yeah, ‘cause I was planning on working out either ‘til I fucking puke or pass out,” Jefferson shoots back, forcing himself to sit upright. Obscenely, he adds another fifteen pounds to both sides of the barbell. “Haven’t done either yet, so here we fuckin’ go.”</p><p>“Here’s a bright fucking idea: don’t do that.”</p><p>“Either this or drinking myself into a goddamn coma, so I think I’m handlin’ it all pretty goddamn well,” Jefferson snaps, viciously cranking out another dozen bench presses. He reracks the barbell, covers his face with his hands as he tries to catch his breath.</p><p>Hamilton pushes.</p><p>“Then help me do a patrol.”</p><p>“I’d’ve already gone bat-fucking-shit on infected if there were any around.” Another dozen presses. Gasping. He looks distinctly nauseous, but this time, he talks. “I never liked coming here, you know. It was so fucking loud when I used to come, and I hated that. Couldn’t understand how Madison could stand it. My house was always so goddamn lifeless.”</p><p>Jefferson’s chest shakes and heaves as he tries to catch his breath—and maybe for other reasons, but Hamilton chooses not to ask.</p><p>“You know what I would give now to hear any of them? Any last one? If there was <em> anything </em>I could for Madison, I’d fuckin’ do it. And right now, there’s not, isn’t there? There’s not a single goddamn thing I can do.”</p><p>“That’s not true,” Hamilton protests, even though he’s not sure he’s right. “He just needs… time.”</p><p>
  <em> What a weak goddamn excuse.  </em>
</p><p>“And what am I supposed to do if you were right?” Jefferson asks, voice quiet. “What if he’s gone too far into the hole and he can’t drag himself out?”</p><p>Hamilton wishes he’d fucking knocked himself out.</p><p>He doesn’t know what to say to that—didn’t know the answer then, certainly doesn’t know it now—and so he says nothing, mouth frozen open.</p><p>Jefferson’s shoulders tighten when Hamilton has no answer to give him, and he launches into another set. Up. Down. Up. Down. He can’t have been kidding earlier, Hamilton realizes—he’s either going to puke or pass out. Neither of those are good options.</p><p>“I want to get out of here,” Hamilton says, because he doesn’t know what to say, so he goes with something he knows is true. “You were right. It’s too fucking quiet here, and I’m thinking too fucking loudly, and I need to get the hell out of here—just for a while. I don’t even care where.”</p><p>And maybe—<em> maybe </em> —Hamilton can be what Jefferson needs. Maybe Jefferson can’t be there for who he actually wants to be there for, but maybe if he squints hard enough, Hamilton can be good enough. A stand-in. If Hamilton phrases it right, inflects his words right, lets Jefferson do <em> something </em>for him, lets Jefferson do something that takes away the edge of his helplessness—maybe that would be enough.</p><p>(And maybe Hamilton really does need this, really does to get out of here. Maybe he just doesn’t want to admit it’s just as much for him as it is for Jefferson).    </p><p>He wets his lips.</p><p>“I don’t want—it’ll—it’ll be just as quiet if I go alone.”</p><p>Jefferson hesitates at the bottom of his rep. And when he pushes up, he reracks his weight. Stands. Slowly. He winces—leg must hurt. Hamilton wonders if he tried to do other exercises, things that made it flare up. Madison would probably ask if he did, frown his disapproval. Hamilton doesn’t.</p><p>“Yeah. Sure.” He rolls his shoulders, meets Hamilton’s eyes. He tries valiantly for a smirk and miserably fails. “If you’re inviting <em> me </em>to talk, then you must be pretty fuckin’ desperate.” Then, seriously, quietly, with his eyes averted: “Shit, I could probably stand to get out of here too right now.”</p><p>“I don’t know what the hell you’re going on about. I didn’t invite you,” Hamilton says, bristling in a way that’s nothing but show, nothing but putting on a pretense.</p><p>“Mm, but you did. Indirectly.”</p><p>“If you can’t fucking point to it, it didn’t happen.”</p><p>“Jesus, and I thought <em> I </em>was well-suited for law school.”</p><p>“You’re well-suited to shut the fuck up.”</p><p>“Make me.”</p><p>(Hamilton almost wants to).</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Jefferson tells Hamilton to meet him in the garage while he goes and changes. Hamilton wanders between rows of cars—rows, actual fucking <em> rows— </em>and stops where there’s three empty spaces, black smears left in the wake of hastily existing cars.</p><p>He wonders if Angelica was on one. He wonders why she was here, who she was with, where she is now. If she knows he’s alive. She would’ve had to have heard, wouldn’t she? By word-of-mouth if not her own ears. And Eliza must’ve been with her. </p><p>Surely Eliza would be with her.</p><p>But where are they now? Why were they here? The questions claw at him.</p><p>Fuck. Fuck—this is why Hamilton doesn’t go looking for answers he doesn’t need. There’s just more fucking questions, more misery, more helplessness.</p><p>“I was gonna take one of the motorcycles,” Jefferson says as he walks in and spots Hamilton by the cars. “Guess we could take a car, though. You’d probably fall off anyways.”       </p><p>Hamilton makes a rude gesture, then joins Jefferson by a truly obscene collection of motorcycles, pushes down amazement at just how different Madison’s childhood must’ve been.</p><p>“Where are we going?”</p><p>“Mount Vernon,” Jefferson answers.</p><p>Hamilton blinks.</p><p>“Mount Vernon like…?”</p><p>“Like Washington’s.”</p><p>“No,” Hamilton says, shaking his head. “Fuck no. I’m not trading one Virginian mansion for another. We can go mini-golfing for all I care, but, Christ, I don’t want to—”</p><p>“Look. Washington was my friend. All I want is to say goodbye in some way that’s worth a damn. We’re in the area, and, shit, I don’t—maybe they got something out of burying—of thinking they buried Madison and I. Closure.” He looks away. “And if I can, I should go.”</p><p>“Jefferson, I—"</p><p>“I already know he’s dead,” Jefferson cuts him off, reading his resistance easily. “It’s not gonna kill him twice to go. I’ll be fine, Hamilton. Worst case’s that I’m the same off as before.”</p><p>Hamilton hesitates a long beat.</p><p>“Just as long as it gets us out of here,” he reluctantly agrees.</p><p>Jefferson hesitates too. And then:</p><p>“Thank you,” he says, and, in a rare moment, Hamilton actually thinks he means it.</p><p>Hamilton fetches an old leather jacket, jeans, boots as the man works on getting a motorcycle started. By the time Hamilton makes it back, the low rumble of an engine greets him. Jefferson already straddles the seat, fiddles with the controls—controls? Whatever.</p><p>Jefferson tosses Hamilton a helmet.</p><p>“Only one that I can find. Pretty sure your skull’s too thick for it to matter, but you can have it anyways if it’ll save me your bitching about my driving.”</p><p>He ignores Jefferson, puts it on anyways. Jefferson slides forward, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Hamilton climbs on behind him.</p><p>“You sure you know how to ride one of these things?”</p><p>“Yeah, sure. I rode bikes all the damn time in France.”</p><p>“God, if I had a dollar for every time you talk about France, I could buy Madison’s fucking house.”</p><p>“Mm. Maybe even mine too,” Jefferson agrees, the smirk clear in his voice.</p><p>And fuck. It’s not what’s between Jefferson and Madison, but it’s familiar, it’s safe, and the two of them can fall back on it. Their bickering, their little jabs, their arguments—constants in a world that has too few. And even if it’s only a pretense of normalcy, it does what it needs to.</p><p>The motorcycle roars to life. Jefferson pulls out of the garage. Occasionally, he shouts loud enough over the roar to be overheard, instructing Hamilton—<em> turn like this, lean here, here’s how you steer. </em>Hamilton absorbs the information as easily as always, neatly filing it away.</p><p>Infected linger in the roadway at times, but Jefferson weaves expertly around them for the most part. There’s one or two swerves where Hamilton swears he goes near horizontal to the asphalt, but they make it through unscathed. And when Hamilton cusses Jefferson out when it’s over, he feels the man’s laughter echo with every vibration of his chest, realizing belatedly how tightly he’s pressed up against his back, how tightly his arms squeeze the man’s waist.</p><p>(He swears he can hear Jefferson’s heartbeat. Feel it through the palms of his hands.)</p><p>Hamilton’s teeth nip into his tongue as he moves away.</p><p>It’s an hour and change before the motorcycle pulls off of a road, winds up a long, green path. Jefferson at last stops the bike, but there’s still no house in sight.</p><p>“What,” Jefferson says, “the ever-loving <em> fuck?” </em></p><p>“What do you mean, <em> what the fuck? </em>Are we lost?” Hamilton asks, eyes narrowed.</p><p>“I… don’t know.” Jefferson kills the ignition, slowly dismounting the motorcycle. He stares out at the empty field, confusion clear on his face. “I think I mighta had a stroke,” he says at last. “Mount Vernon should be right here.” He points at a flat expanse: empty space. “I’m not… am I? Fuck, I’ve been here a hundred times.”</p><p>He shakes his head, vaguely dazed, walking forwards. Hamilton follows, fingers curling around his pistol. He wonders, briefly, if Jefferson has lost it completely.</p><p>“It’s not here,” Jefferson says, awe-struck. He laughs a little too lightly. “Well, I’ll be damned. Guess I finally cracked. Time for you and Madison to put the sharp stuff away, I think.”</p><p>No sooner do the words leave his mouth than does Hamilton’s foot catch on something in the dirt. He barely saves himself from falling, stumbles forward, turns around with narrowed eyes. From the dirt, a few half-crumbled, rotted slats of white wood stick up. Jefferson sees them at the same time, takes a hesitant step forwards and drops to a crouch.</p><p>Jefferson’s eyes gradually move on and scan the rest of the ground around them. Hamilton follows along, and they gradually pick up on similar protrusions: shattered glass, broken white bricks, scattered chunks of red-roofing. Hamilton’s throat tightens. A pit grows in his stomach. He takes a step towards the pond, looking at the still blue-green water, the lily pads speckling its surface. Tufts of tall green grass grow around it, but there are no trees nearby: only jagged, broken stumps.</p><p>“I think,” Hamilton murmurs, “that someone bombed the ever-loving shit out of this place.”</p><p><em>“Someone?”</em> Bitter, Jefferson laughs. “I think we both fucking know who. No one else has the resources or the goddamn pettiness to waste said fuckin’ resources. <em> Jesus— </em> on a <em> dead </em> man’s house? Are you fucking <em> shitting me!” </em></p><p>Jefferson’s voice rises, rises, then at last cuts off. He shakes his head, joins Hamilton by the side of the pond. He stays there, shoulders held stiff as the minutes wear on—and in the end, he just exhales out wasted anger with a hiss, compartmentalizes the rest to wherever it is he keeps it before it boils back over. Exhaustion fills anger’s wake. Jefferson’s shoulders slump. His eyes flatten, but the longer they stay focused on the water, the more the light returns. </p><p>It’s a different light—subdued, still tired, maybe even fragile—but still present. Low and appreciative, Jefferson whistles.</p><p>“Damn,” he quietly says, almost reverential. “Sure is pretty though, huh?”</p><p>Hamilton looks out at the water with him, and for the first time, he sees all of what’s in front of him, the minute little details that he’s glossed-over. The silvery moonlight glazes over the still surface, gives it an almost glasslike quality. Every star in the sky is reflected in the water: the entirety of the Milky Way reflected in a wound on the earth’s surface.</p><p>“Yeah,” he agrees, just as quiet. “It’s certainly something.”</p><p>Jefferson exhales again, the glazed-over look in his eye vanishing with a determined shake of his head.</p><p>“To hell with it,” he decides with a tight shake of his head. “Can’t walk right half the goddamn time, but fuck if I can’t still swim.”</p><p>Wordlessly, Jefferson sheds his shirt, his jeans, his—<em> he’s not going to— </em>he does. Of course he does.</p><p>“You’re not going to—”</p><p>“—ride back with wet goddamn jeans?” Jefferson cuts him off, dry. “No, I’m not. Another thing the French are right about.” A smirk plays at his mouth. “Most swimsuits, you may as well be naked anyways.”</p><p>Nude, Jefferson wades out waist-deep in the water before he casts a look over his shoulder.</p><p>“You comin’?”</p><p>“What, bared-assed naked into the fucking crater-lake?”</p><p>“Mm, I’ll protect you from the water moccasins if that’s what’s got you bothered.”</p><p>“Fuck snakes—it’s probably radioactive, jackass.”</p><p>“Well, better to go out glowing than gutted.” He looks around. “And I’m no demolitions expert, but I think a nuclear explosion would’ve left the place a little more flattened. Probably a concussive blast.” He shrugs, arches his brow. “Your loss, though. Water feels like a goddamn dream.”</p><p>Hamilton’s jaw ticks. He watches Jefferson walk forward until he’s deep enough to swim—and then, pride winning out, he strips down and follows. Ahead of him, Jefferson’s quiet strokes disturb the surface as he makes his way to the center, Hamilton trailing behind with much sloppier form. It’s been a long time since he last swam.</p><p>“Reminds me of Maine,” Jefferson says, distant, his voice clouded in reminiscence. “Where I went to summer camp. Used to sneak out to the lake with Sam and John, go skinny-dipping. Watch the sunrise. Jesus—I miss that.”</p><p> It feels vaguely like Jefferson is offering him something, offering Hamilton some sliver of himself that Hamilton hasn’t asked for and doesn’t know what to do with. All he can think to do is slice off a sliver of himself to offer in return.</p><p>He doesn’t dwell on what it says that he actually does.</p><p>“There weren’t many lakes down in Nevis. But my, uh… I used to go down to the beach all the time when I was little. Make sandcastles. Swim in the ocean. That kind of thing.”</p><p>“My mother loved the ocean,” Jefferson comments like he knows the word Hamilton couldn’t quite get out. “She took me a few times to a little beach on the Virginia coast.”</p><p>“Were you two close?”</p><p>“Mm. Not particularly. I was eight when she died. She preferred to spend time with my father.”</p><p>“I, uh… I’m sorry to hear that.”</p><p>“Don’t be.” He shakes his head. “I wasn’t. Didn’t know her well enough to be sorry.”</p><p>They fall into a neutral quiet until Jefferson stops, sighs the deep sigh of someone that’s just set down a heavy load. His shoulders slacken, fall down loose for the first time in weeks. There’s still that certain, distantly pained strain to his brow that’s been there so often since he took the bullet back in Georgia, but even it too seems to lessen a little.</p><p>“Found a cool spot,” Jefferson explains, eyes slipping shut. “Christ, that’s nice.”</p><p>Jefferson turns over onto his back, floats languidly on the surface of the water. Before he can help it, Hamilton finds himself looking.</p><p>The moonlight catches on Jefferson’s skin, haloes his face with silver. Water beads, trickles down the curve of his neck, gathers in the hollow of his throat. It trickles lower too, down his broad chest, off of a well-sculpted torso—but Hamilton forces his gaze away before he can follow the water any lower. He lifts his eyes towards the sky, to the pinprick stars above.</p><p>In the night, fireflies spark golden like low-hanging stars. The constant danger, the constant fear, the constant fight just to see another sunrise all feel like a distant dream. Here, it all feels ethereal, unreal: time feels less like a moment, more like a memory.</p><p>Hamilton, gradually, is aware of his neck prickling, but it’s a long minute before he at last looks back over, this time to find Jefferson watching him. It’s hard to quite place what expression’s on his face; it falls somewhere past thoughtfulness, but a step short of reverence. Cautiously, with enough deliberateness to let Hamilton move away if he chooses, Jefferson reaches out. Hamilton doesn’t flinch away—surprising them both, maybe.</p><p>Jefferson’s fingers trail lightly along the curve of his neck, rest gently over the white-stretched-skin scar at the bottom of his throat. Something Hamilton can’t name waxes and wanes in Jefferson’s eyes.</p><p>“I need you to promise me,” he says, voice quiet and subdued in a way that Hamilton knows can mean nothing good. “You never promised me the first I asked.”</p><p>“Oh, is that what you brought me all the way out here alone for?” he asks, voice biting. “So you could corner me where I can’t get away easy? Where Madison can’t step in?”</p><p>Jefferson looks away, looking as guilty as he’s capable of being.</p><p>“Hold on. You fucking did, didn’t you?” Hamilton realizes, eyes widening as he jerks away. “That whole thing about Washington was just bullshit? Christ—it was, wasn’t it?”</p><p>“It wasn’t,” Jefferson insists. His eyes flick away. He pauses, then adds, “Not completely. It played in, but I meant what I said.”</p><p>“Jesus! You’re such a fucking asshole. Have I ever told you that?” Hamilton shoots back, and it could be a joke, but it isn’t. His tongue is sharp, getting sharper, and to keep from going too far, he has to swallow the words that want to crawl up his throat: they go down like razor blades.</p><p>“Only every other breath,” Jefferson tries to joke, but Hamilton shakes his head hard, shoves off the attempt.</p><p>“No—<em> no </em>, I’m not gonna promise you shit. I don’t know what the hell you want, but it’s not going to be something that I want to hear, and I don’t want to—”</p><p>“Just hear me out, Hamilton—please. Fuck’s sake, you can get as pissed as you like once I’m done. Yell whatever the hell you want! I’ll forget it by the time we’re back at Montpelier. Just—whatever it takes to get you to listen. Just tell me. What’s it gonna take? Just to listen. That’s it.”</p><p>Hamilton’s jaw grinds tightly.</p><p>Jefferson doesn’t get that there are things he doesn’t think about. Things he can’t think about. Things that get brought out when worry and anxiety and fear crack the walls that hold back things he can’t touch, things behind the walls that could make him enough to earn him the silent treatment for weeks. There are things that he could do to earn himself worse than that.</p><p>Jefferson doesn’t get that. He hasn’t seen how far down Hamilton can go. Doesn’t know how far down he’s been. He doesn’t know what he’s asking. He doesn’t understand that whatever he’s going to say, whatever he’s going to ask is almost certainly going to make Hamilton look down into the gaping hole, push him to vertigo.</p><p>He doesn’t understand that Hamilton can’t say no.</p><p>Not to him. His friend. One of his two closest friends—even if only by default. Not when Jefferson needs—fuck. Jefferson doesn’t need him, but he needs something, and Hamilton’s the only one that can give him anything at all right now. He has to say yes.</p><p>(But he wants to, too—wants to pretend on some level that he is needed, that he isn’t just second best, isn’t just a substitute for someone else. Pretending—that’s all he can do.)</p><p>He wants to—he doesn’t know. He doesn’t fucking know what he wants.</p><p>“Talk fast,” he says, because he’s sure he wants that much. “Just fucking get it over with.”</p><p>Jefferson takes a long moment before he complies, and he. Looks so desperately grateful that Hamilton wishes he didn’t at all. It would make it easer to ignore him. To not listen to a goddamn word.</p><p>“It took me a week to find you,” Jefferson gets out in a rush of air, voice as hard to place as his expression. “I was scared out of my goddamned mind. I was so fuckin’ sure the last thing I was gonna see of both of you was that last look over my shoulder before I got chased off. It was—the worst goddamn week of my life. Worse than the first week of the fucking outbreak.”</p><p>It takes Hamilton a moment to realize what Jefferson is talking about: the blank-space in his memory spanning two weeks after his first bite. The time Hamilton spent drifting in the dark, days of black that only yellow could break through. Madison has never talked about those days; Hamilton has never asked. He’s certainly never asked what happened to Jefferson.</p><p>“Well, guess you got us to see us both again. Lucky you,” Hamilton says, eyes flicking away.</p><p>“Sure. But it was a long fucking week,” he tells Hamilton, voice older and wearier than it should be. He makes a sound more wounded than a sigh and looks towards the sky.  “Longest goddamn week of my life. And I found you both, and I thought it would be alright, and as I’m going to Madison, he fucking breaks down. Because you were bit, and you were going to die.” Like broken glass, Jefferson laughs. Like molten silver, the moonbeams dance off his face. “Only you die, and you didn’t turn.”</p><p>“Shit, Jefferson, is there a point to this?” Hamilton asks, mouth dry, throat full of razors.</p><p>“Yeah,” Jefferson says, the word flat and final. “My point’s that I don’t wanna get infected and wait it out, count on maybe being the second person in hundreds of millions that’s immune.”</p><p>“And what—?”</p><p>“I’m asking you to take care of me if I get bit.”</p><p><em> Take care of me— </em>now there's a fucking euphemism.</p><p>A dozen emotions hit Hamilton at once, but he finds anger and clasps on tight. Anger doesn’t force him to confront things he doesn’t want to think about. Anger, he can work with.</p><p>Anger is easy.</p><p>“Oh, sure. You want me to hand-dig your goddamned grave while I’m at it? Pick some fucking flowers? Write your damn eulogy? Because you can eat shit,” he snarls, shaking his head. “Don’t fucking put that on me. I’ve been through <em> enough </em> . I can’t take that, and I can’t take you talking about dying like you’ve already got one foot in the grace. If you get bit, choke yourself. <em> ” </em></p><p>“And what if I can’t?” Jefferson pushes on, and Hamilton wants him to be angry, because then at least they can shout at each other, turn this into a fight, make it easier for him to blow up—but Jefferson’s not angry. He’s just tired and worn down and pleading, making this all that much harder. “I will, but if I can’t, Madison will want to. He’ll feel like it’s his responsibility.”</p><p>“And how’s that make it mine?” Hamilton counters, petulant, ashamed even as he asks.</p><p>Of course he knows the answer: Jefferson is the goddamn sun in Madison’s sky, and Madison’s world itself may as well go dark if the light in Jefferson’s eyes goes out. If Madison not only has to lose him, but to kill him—well, Hamilton isn’t Jefferson. Hamilton can’t drag Madison out of the dark. Probably couldn’t even find him in the dark in the first place.</p><p>How the fuck could Hamilton even think of doing that to him? To his <em> friend? </em></p><p>In a rare bout of patience, Jefferson waits—that or he’s shocked into silence, too fucking angry to even find his voice. Hamilton refuses to look now, marinates silently in his shame.</p><p>
  <em> Laurens didn’t ask you to kill him. He let you go. </em>
</p><p>Like he knew just how dark Hamilton’s world would already be.</p><p>“How much does it matter that you’re not one of them?” Hamilton at last gets out, dry-throated, voice so goddamn scratchy the words barely sound like English.</p><p>Silence comes long and heavy—but not angry.</p><p>“There’s only one other thing that scares me as much,” Jefferson eventually responds, his usually too-loud, too-slow, too-southern voice shaved down to something small and frail.</p><p>Hamilton thinks.</p><p>He remembers, remembers, remembers bullet-holes punched through bleeding skulls, remembers death, remembers Madison pleading with him, pleading for Hamilton to let him wait until after infection had burned his mind away—and that’s not fair, not a fair comparison to make, not fair, because Madison didn’t care then like he does now—did he?</p><p>
  <em> Did he? </em>
</p><p>He couldn’t have.</p><p>But Hamilton, voice thin, eyes closed, tells Jefferson <em> okay </em>anyways.</p><p>And when Jefferson’s face loses its tension for the first time in weeks, at last seems to fully lose that pained-quality, even though it could cost him every damn thing he’s been scraping back together inside of himself, Hamilton feels like he’s made the right choice.</p><p>The one someone who gives a shit would make.</p><p>Still.</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t even have to ask. He doesn’t have to worry any longer about what’ll happen if he’s bitten, about whose responsibility it’ll be to pull the trigger. It’s not fair. It’s not fair that he’s backed into this fucking corner, made judge, jury, executioner (and only then because he’s the odd man out), and it’s <em> not fair </em>that he’s the only one among them that—</p><p>“Do you resent that I’m immune?” Hamilton blurts out, and familiar guilt flares hot and bright in his chest, the old <em> should’ve been someone else </em>mantra rattling loud and clear through his mind.</p><p>
  <em> Of course he does, why wouldn’t he, it could be him or Madison, but instead, it’s you. </em>
</p><p>“What I <em> resent </em>is that you spend so much goddamn time tormenting yourself over it,” Jefferson answers without half a second’s hesitation. He looks at Hamilton out of the corner of his eye, goes on. “I resent that, sometimes, I swear that you believe the only damn reason we let you stick around is because you’re some kinda fuckin’ biological miracle.”</p><p>He straightens vertical in the water as if to drive home his point, swims close.</p><p>He’s—Hamilton blinks. There’s a sincerity in his expression like he’s been cracked open.</p><p>Not like earlier—not in desperation. Not like he is when he lets tiny slivers of the hurt and fear gleam through his blustering veneer. This is something else.</p><p>Of his own will, Jefferson lets Hamilton in.</p><p>“I don’t know if they can make a damn cure. I don’t know if we’ll even be able to <em> find </em> a place that could <em> maybe </em> make a cure, and I don’t know what a cure would cost you. The only damn thing I know is that—” And here he smiles their private smile, wry and haughty. “—even as much as you get on my nerves, even as regrettable as I sometimes find it, I give a shit about you.”</p><p>“<em>I give a shit about you?” </em> Hamilton imitates him, but his voice is weak, his throat dry. “Really? Heart-to-heart, a long-ass speech, and <em> I give a shit about you </em>is the best you can do?”</p><p>Jefferson laughs, the tension breaks, and, beneath the moonlight, in a moment that feels more like a memory, Hamilton forgets to hold his thoughts close to his chest, leaving himself vulnerable, cracked-open. He fucks up, and he pays for it.</p><p>“What, you want a fuckin’ love declaration?” Jefferson laughs.</p><p>Slipping through his cracked-open defenses, something faint, wistful, wanting<em> . </em></p><p>The thought—less of a thought, more of an imprecise, indistinct feeling—chokes him before it’s even finished, wraps cold fingers around his neck and squeezes hard.</p><p>The imprecise sharpens, loneliness and hurt suddenly attaching hard and fast to something specific, something just as unobtainable, something precise, sharp, <em> no— </em></p><p>Hamilton suddenly finds it hard to breathe at all.</p><p>His throat dries, his hearing cuts out—and Jefferson is still talking, going on, words like <em> friend </em> and <em> trust </em> and <em> love </em>sprinkled in his speech—and Hamilton can’t fucking breathe. He’s drowning under a yellow sky and the weight of all the water in the ocean.</p><p>
  <em> No no no no no please no don’t do this no no no </em>
</p><p>“Hamilton?” he hears Jefferson ask, and Hamilton sees his face screwed with worry.</p><p>Jefferson swims closer, but suddenly he finds the proximity nauseating. Jefferson’s watching him too closely, and Hamilton’s suddenly afraid of what he’s going to see. If he’ll catch onto what’s sliding under Hamilton’s skin, trying to take root in his ribcage.</p><p>“I, uh, don’t feel good,” he manages, voice scratchy. “Too hot.”</p><p>And before Jefferson can get out another word, Hamilton slips below the surface.</p><p>(Sometimes it seems easier to just swim down).</p><p>Water cold and tight around his chest, he descends. Down, down, all the way down until his feet meet cool, muddy earth, and there’s nowhere left to swim.</p><p>(Sometimes it seems—)</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The good thing about motorcycles, Hamilton thinks, is that they don’t facilitate conversation.</p><p>Which is good, because he’s still carefully compartmentalizing, still carefully denying whatever it is that’s worrying the fringes of his consciousness. He doesn’t want to talk.</p><p>The bad thing about motorcycles, Hamilton thinks, is that they fucking invent close quarters. The ride back to Montpelier feels much longer than it actually must be. He’s the first off the motorcycle once they pull inside the garage, halfway inside the house in an instant. Jefferson calls after him, maybe irritable, maybe worried, but Hamilton doesn’t stop to listen.</p><p>He peels down the stairs into the cellar, grabs the closest bottle, and starts drinking. If he drinks enough, gets fucking blackout drunk, maybe he’ll forget. Even better, maybe he’ll go into a fucking coma, forget the past two goddamn years. The bottle shakes as he pulls it away from his mouth.</p><p>“I feel the same,” a voice says, and Hamilton jumps, guiltily spins around.</p><p>It’s just Madison—<em>is that any fucking better, though? </em>He sits sprawl-legged with his back to the wall, a half-empty bottle in his hands and an empty one at his side. He looks strangely mussed, drunk, dark eyes too-focused as they try to make sense of Hamilton. There’s something deeply defeated in his eyes, something sad in his posture, but the worst of it has inevitably been dulled by alcohol, made bearable.</p><p>“Do you want me to get Jefferson?” Hamilton asks, already edging away.</p><p>Madison, studies him, then, valiantly, manages to stand.</p><p>“Come with me,” he says instead of answering.</p><p>Hamilton follows, finally hurries to match Madison step-for-step in case he falls. Madison takes him back to the closed door, into the piano room, directs him to sit on the bench, gently pries the bottle out of his hand. Madison guides his fingers over the keys, hands cool as they rest over his.</p><p>“Let me show you C Major,” Madison says. “That’s the easiest key.”</p><p>And, without quite knowing why, Hamilton lets him.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Madison at last sobers too much to want to keep company, and so Hamilton leaves without being asked. Goes to take a shower on Madison’s recommendation. When the water starts to heat up and steams fills the air, Hamilton steps beneath the almost too-hot spray. He washes pondwater out of his hair, blood and dirt from beneath his nails, scrubs his skin within an inch of being raw. The water strikes some of the tension out of his back, warms him until his skin is flushed, red. It doesn’t wash away the feeling. The cruelty, the violent fucking cruelty he’s inflicting on himself, the misery, the unbearable fucking misery he’s going to unleash. </p><p>One by one, Hamilton tries to pluck out the velvet-clawed talons piercing his chest.</p><p>Each try only drives them in deeper, sends them skirling closer and closer to puncturing his heart, and the wounds he leaves behind from trying well up wet and raw in his ribcage.</p><p>Slowly, carefully, Hamilton wraps what he feels up neat and tight, carefully coaxes it to the same place he keeps his grief, his fear, his worst parts. There are things that words can’t reach, and there are moments that he can’t acknowledge.</p><p>He leaves the shower clean, and he feels no better—but at least sleep finally comes.</p><p>Sleep goes.</p><p>His nightmares take on new forms. Not bloody, but undercut by anxiety. Always moving. Always chasing. Always reaching—and always coming away with nothing but air.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“As though as I’ve been stabbed,” Madison impassively answers before launching anew into a piece, some piece Hamilton’s never heard.</p><p>He doesn’t recognize the song, but it’s something gut-wrenching and cutting, raw as broken glass. Hamilton feels like he’s trespassing just by listening, has to force himself not to slip away, lest Madison turn around and find him gone. After a few measures, Madison stops mid-chord, makes a thoughtful sound, then carefully fills in notes on his manuscript paper.</p><p>It’s late afternoon, Jefferson is out doing fuck-knows-what, and Hamilton can’t fucking stand to be alone with his thoughts, not right now. </p><p>And that’s how he ended up alone with Madison in the piano room yet again, hot cup of tea in hands, <em> how are you </em>falling emptily from his mouth like there was any other answer Madison could give. Hamilton shifts on his feet. Madison keeps filling in notes.</p><p>“I brought you tea.”</p><p>“That was thoughtful. Thank you.”</p><p>“Well, do you want it?”</p><p>“Please.”</p><p>Hamilton shifts again, discomfort giving way to irritation. He’s quick to push it down, reminding himself that Madison has every fucking right not to feel conversational—but Madison must read something in his half second of silence. Madison sighs, low and weary, and then he turns, eyes so exhausted Hamilton can’t imagine how he’s still sitting upright.</p><p>“Come here,” Madison says, too soft to be a demand but too firm to be an invitation. He knows Hamilton too well, knows he’ll push back against both sides of the spectrum in pride. “We didn’t get far last night. I’ll show you A minor.”</p><p>Hamilton shifts on his feet, the cup of tea hot in his hands, beginning to burn his palms.</p><p>He tells himself he’s only crossing the room to set the cup down, but it doesn’t surprise him at all when he settles down onto the bench without another word. Guilt roils too hot and too tight in his chest for him to look over at Madison, so he settles for staring at the manuscript paper instead. The ink stains and scribbles splotching the page are so chaotic, so out of character and unlike Madison that he can hardly believe it was him who put them there.</p><p>“I used to write music frequently,” Madison quietly explains, observing. “I find it’s a helpful way to… organize my thoughts. Realign myself, so to speak.”</p><p>“What, when Jefferson can’t?” Hamilton asks, and he flinches when the words come out bitter.</p><p>“There are moments that words can’t reach,” Madison answers, quiet. If he’s noticed the edge in Hamilton’s voice, he doesn’t say so. “And Thomas is only a man, despite what he’d have you believe. He’d sooner let his spine break beneath my burdens than say a word.”</p><p>“And you wouldn’t?”</p><p>Madison is silent as he guides Hamilton’s fingers over the keys. They hover a moment, pensive, and then Madison’s eyes slide to meet his.</p><p>“You’re only a man too, Alexander.” </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton never cared much about learning an instrument, but it indisputably chases the quiet away. He lets Madison offer to teach him as he pleases, and he always accepts. It’s easier to be around Madison. Easier than being alone with only his thoughts for company. </p><p>Certainly easier than being with Jefferson, who is slowly but surely watching Hamilton with narrowed, puzzled eyes. Jefferson isn’t oblivious. He can see the tight, rigid lines in Hamilton’s shoulders whenever he’s around. It’s easier to hide things he doesn’t have to think about. Not so easy to hide from something that’s always around, so often in front of him.</p><p>Hamilton pushes it down further. If he doesn’t think, doesn’t acknowledge it, there’s a chance it’ll go away. That he can walk away unscathed.</p><p>But all that aside, some selfish part of him likes being wanted.</p><p>Needed—needed <em> first</em>. Before someone else.</p><p>Minor scales. Major scales. Sharps, flats, sixteen notes, staccatos. Mostly, Madison is silent, reflective, always not-quite-entirely available. He shows Hamilton where to play, how to play, how to remedy mishit notes. Sometimes, he talks—quiet and reflective, almost like he doesn’t hear his own voice. He talks mostly about operas, orchestras, symphonies, about etudes and sonatas and nocturnes. </p><p>There are rare, fleeting moments where names are mentioned in passing, and when Hamilton at last connects the names to the ones carved into the tombstones behind the house, he understands.</p><p>Madison takes the worst parts of himself—the parts he won’t even let Jefferson see—and he sublimates them into something good. Something that won’t sink and settle like needles beneath his skin, always just one jolt away from spearing him straight through.</p><p>Madison is methodical, disciplined, careful in all things, grief included. Madison knows how to process these things. Knows how to create instead of destroy. Knows how to take things head-on. He’s better at these things than Hamilton.</p><p>(But is he really? Or did Hamilton just lose what made trying to move on worth it? Stop thinking trying to move on is worth the misery? What even is there to move on for? Nothing—not for him.)</p><p>“What are you thinking about?” Madison asks him one afternoon, and Hamilton blinks, startles.</p><p>The question is nothing special, but he can’t remember the last time someone asked him. Certainly can’t remember the last time he gave an honest answer. Would’ve had to have been John, he thinks, but there’s so much he can’t remember about the two of them anymore.</p><p>Thinking about John sends guilt straight down his spine, and the guilt only grows deeper when Madison’s eyes search his face, kinder and gentler than he deserves. Fuck, he never thought he’d miss Madison looking at him tight-lipped, disapproving, dispassionate but too indifferent to say a damn word.</p><p>“What do you mean?” he asks, hedging.</p><p>“You spend too much time in your own mind, Alexander,” is all Madison replies. “It might do you well to share every now and then.”</p><p>“What, you wanna start this Socratic circle? Not like you’re an open book either,” Hamilton retorts.</p><p>Madison’s hands rest atop the keys, mouth twisting into a wry, thin line. He begins to play.</p><p>“I was named after my father,” he says, voice thoughtful. “I inherited most of myself from him, I suppose.” A minor chord warbles from the piano as he pauses to think. “My oldest sister—Francis, spelled with an i—ah.” For the first time since they’ve arrived, Madison’s mouth tips towards a smile. “I hadn’t thought about that in years.” The scale switches to F major—something lighter. “The story, so I heard it, was that the ultrasound was misread. And, of course, she was given a name, then born—but they’d already had everything bought and ready for Francis as spelled with an i…”</p><p>It’s a tight fit on the bench with two grown men, and Hamilton has to pretend he doesn’t notice the way their thighs press against each other, the way Madison’s shoulder nudges into his every time he reaches over. He has to pretend that he’s the good friend Madison believes he is, even though he knows he’s not. He has to pretend like, somehow, whenever Madison stops talking, it’s only fair that he speaks.</p><p>But Madison doesn’t stop talking. Only ever pauses. Switches chords. Writes something down on his sheets of music. And when a beat of silence wears on when Hamilton still hasn’t found the words, Madison, patient beyond merit, finds something else to say.</p><p>          </p><hr/><p> </p><p>That’s how it goes.</p><p>Madison composes. Hamilton learns. Jefferson waits.</p><p>Hamilton is distinctly on-edge, always aware of how out of his element he is. Between lessons, between walks with Jefferson, he wanders lost through the house.</p><p>And then one day, the worst of it is over.</p><p>Madison joins them for dinner. He sits next to Jefferson, slides his chair too close for polite company. Hamilton says nothing—acknowledging his absence will only make it more awkward—but there’s nothing at all that needs to be said. Not between the two of them. </p><p>Madison takes Jefferson’s hand, and if Jefferson’s shoulders shake just once, Hamilton pretends he hasn’t seen.</p><p>Madison goes on long, long walks. Sometimes alone, sometimes with him, sometimes the three of them—mostly just with Jefferson. Hamilton doesn’t know what the two of them talk about, but as the days wear on, the mystery starts to get to him.       </p><p>He forces himself to focus.</p><p>Hamilton can finally put a name to it.</p><p>The indistinct, imprecise, ever-lingering hurt he last names: jealousy. The word strikes him as sick and ugly and twisted, screws guilt deeper and deeper into his heart. It’s maybe not always so much jealousy as it is envy or longing or something too nuanced to call anything but hurt, but there’s unmistakably jealousy in the mix. Thick jealousy, impossible to swallow down, burning hot and sour in his throat like bile.</p><p>He goes to sleep, and he never feels colder.</p><p>Madison spends less time in front of the piano, more time with Jefferson. Hamilton tries not to be bothered—how the fuck can he bothered, not when he doesn’t belong to either of them, not to anyone—but he is. It hurts. It hurts so fucking badly that he can hardly breathe.</p><p>What maybe hurts most of all is that they really are happy.</p><p>Madison smiles, tentative and fragile, and Jefferson smiles too-white like the sun in the sky decided to shine just for him. Even when Jefferson starts blustering, gesturing too-wildly with whatever utensil is in his hand as he debates with Hamilton over the dinner table, Madison watches him with a kind of old, warm, unfaded love that seems to belong more in a memory than real life.</p><p><em>They’re happy. That’s what you want</em>. <em>Madison is your friend, Jefferson’s—they’re your friends, for fuck’s sake. They’re happy. That’s good.</em></p><p>Hamilton wanders to the library: beautiful, vast, warm. He sits by the fireplace. Passes out reading on the ostentatious-rich-people-fucking-bear-rug. Surrounds himself with books.</p><p>
  <em>Let them be happy together. Let them be happy. Don’t fuck this up for yourself.</em>
</p><p>“What’s that?” Jefferson asks at breakfast one morning, voice strained.</p><p>Hamilton looks over, follows his eyes to Madison's hand, the silver band slipped past the knuckle on his fourth finger. Madison’s eyes almost slide to Hamilton’s—then stop.</p><p>“I found it among my father’s things,” he explains, looking at his hand. “It was his wedding band. I didn’t want to leave it.”</p><p>Jefferson makes an unintelligible, slightly strangled sound, and Hamilton and Madison both pretend like they don’t know Jefferson is thinking of the ring stashed in the Escalade’s backseat.</p><p>They’re happy, but sometimes Hamilton wonders.</p><p>Wouldn’t they trade in this life for their old one in an instant, regardless of whether it erased him from the narrative? Would they wash him clean entirely if they could?</p><p>Wouldn’t they?</p><p>
  <em>Of course they would.</em>
</p><p>Hamilton leaves breakfast early, and all day, he thinks of how they would’ve been happier if they’d never met him at all.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton goes to the wine cellar late that night. All he means to do is grab a few bottles of wine. Slink back to the library. Get wasted. But there’s light shining from the music room, and he finds his feet turning around, quietly creeping towards the door.</p><p>Meaning to enter, he cracks it open—but the music stops him.</p><p>A skirling, unhinged melody fractures the silence: harsh flats and wild sharps, staccato notes punctured by gasping, breathless rests. Musically incomprehensible, coherent only by its complete incoherence, a lifetime’s worth of grief crammed into a swan song.</p><p>The music takes him to Nevis, to New York, to Charleston—then back through all three again, hurt and hurt and hurt building on top of itself until it’s suffocating.</p><p>Harmonies swell around him. The song crescendos—a wounded, stinging shriek of keys. A soft refrain. Two chords. A few beats, silence. And then something soft, something regretful, and something that puts a sucking black-hole of sadness right into Hamilton’s chest.</p><p>Madison’s hands move to his lap. He sits still, silent—oblivious to his audience.</p><p>One last time, his hands go back to the keys.</p><p>Something sad. Something lost. And at the end, three quiet chords in a major key.</p><p>Madison breathes out, and, easily as that, Madison lets go. Or maybe doesn’t <em>let go, </em>per se. Let go is a strong word. But he lets go of something. Some kind of grief. Some kind of guilt. Lets go of enough of it to pry the needles underneath from out of his skin.</p><p>Absolution.</p><p>Madison lets go.</p><p>They leave Montpelier the next morning.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He lists the reasons.</p><ol>
<li><em>I’m writing this with one of his three-hundred dollar fountain pens, and, yeah, fine, it writes better than anything else. Whatever. He’s right that it’s the best fucking brand of pen out there, but he was a smug jackass about it. Also: knows about pen brands, which is a good reason to hate him on its own. What’s worse is that this piece of shit is engraved with his whole name. </em></li>
<li><em>His teeth are too goddamn white, and I know he’s got fucking veneers, but he gets so goddamn offended every time I call him out on it. Who the fuck but Thomas Jefferson himself has an inferiority complex over veneers?</em></li>
<li><em>Won’t shut the fuck up about France</em></li>
<li><em> I almost beat him at chess, and he got so goddamned nervous I was going to win that I fucking swear he somehow cheated just so he didn't experience the humiliation of defeat.</em></li>
<li><em> His stupid fucking yoga</em></li>
<li><em>His stupid fucking workouts. There are no fucking wet t-shirt contents anymore, so put on a fucking shirt and be done with it. Vanity was born in 1982, and its name is Thomas Jefferson.</em></li>
<li><em>His stupid fucking clothes. Not as bad as they used to be, but Jesus, the fact that anyone still dresses the way he does and hasn’t died yet is a goddamn miracle.</em></li>
<li>
<em>He’s</em><em> so goddamn brilliant, and he wastes it on being a fucking Democratic-Republican. Sometimes when he argues one of his awful fucking points, I almost even believe him.</em>
</li>
<li><em>His goddamn laugh. I wish I’d punched him over it the first time I’d met him. I hate it so damn much. I want to shut him the fuck up every time. I fucking hate it. I swear I do.</em></li>
<li><em>I punched him, and he chased after me. Who the fuck does that? Who the fuck gets punched, then decides to let them come along anyways? Why the fuck would he do that?</em></li>
<li><em>It used to be so fucking easy to hate him, and now it’s not. I can't fucking go back. Why can’t I go back? Why am I such an awful fucking friend? I can’t fucking stand him, can’t fucking stand the way Madison trusts me, can’t fucking stand that I’m in love with him and that it doesn’t even matter, that it’s too late, that it was always too fucking late, and everything hurts so much, is it ever going to stop, please, just fucking make it stop, I can’t</em></li>
</ol><p>It worked once, but not anymore.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>June wears on: hot, steamy, unpleasant. July nears.</p><p>Hamilton checks himself constantly. Hides that, sometimes, some mornings, he can hardly breathe. Hides that the talons in his chest are getting tighter, not loosening. Hides the feeling that swirls and eddies beneath his skin like an oil-slick atop the ocean.</p><p>He can’t scrub himself clean. He ignores it. Tries not to let it touch him. Shoves down the sting and ache in his chest like he’d shove away a nightmare. Doesn’t think about it.</p><p>The two-year anniversary of the outbreak is coming close. There’s plenty to occupy his mind anyways. Things like the Schuyler sisters, Hercules, Burr—Burr, who he never even really hated, who he never thought to tell otherwise until it was too late. He occupies himself with that—with things he never said to distract himself from the things he can’t say now.</p><p><em>Not that there would be anything to say, </em>he always tries to remind himself.</p><p>Almost two years now.</p><p>Some nights, he dreams of New York—before New York.</p><p>He prefers the nightmares. Nightmares only hurt while he sleeps; nightmares can’t hurt him when he’s awake. Thinking of the old New York can—and it does.</p><p>“Did you sleep?” Madison asks him every few mornings while he coaxes a mug of coffee into his hands. Not <em> how did you sleep </em> or <em> did you sleep well </em> —only ever <em> did you sleep? </em></p><p>“Some,” he answers, and sometimes he’s not lying.</p><p>Most of the time he is, and Madison knows he is, but they leave it. Let the truth lie.</p><p>But he’s staying alive, and, most of the time, things are good as they get. Things aren’t even bad. Things are maybe even good—actually good, not relative good.</p><p>Madison smiles more than he ever has—and that means Jefferson smiles more too. And Hamilton is happy that they’re happy, so he tries to smile too.</p><p>They head northwest a while. Then south. Slowly start tracking east again. </p><p>Hamilton keeps his mind busy. He spares moments to wonder what the country’s heartland’s like, what the situation’s like in the western territories. There would’ve been less Redcoats stationed there, of course—but the English extraction was so hasty, so sloppy that it seems impossible that lots wouldn’t have been left behind.</p><p>And that takes him back to the most important distraction he has.</p><p>There has to be <em>someone </em>left in the country still trying to create a vaccine. Even if he can’t make it in one piece to England, there has to be <em>something—</em></p><p>But what if there’s not? What if this is all he has? </p><p>It’s too much, and it’s too little, and he wants more and less and nothing and everything, and he doesn’t fucking know, he doesn’t fucking know what to do. Madison and Jefferson have fed him, clothed him, cared for him. They’ve let him come along. They gave him their friendship even before he wanted it and long before he ever let himself take it. They give and give, and he takes and takes.</p><p>And he still wants more.</p><p>
  <em>You will never be satisfied.</em>
</p><p>Accusing, indicting, the phrase plays in his mind with a voice whose owner he can’t remember.</p><p>Madison is so fucking good to him. Too good. Makes him coffee in the mornings. Listens. Lets him rattle on and on and on without interrupting when that’s what Hamilton wants to do, even when the fond, subdued amusement in his eyes fades to tolerant irritation—but that last bit doesn’t happen often anymore. No, Madison might let him go on forever, never let the barely-there tick of his mouth slip. Madison, too good to him, too good for him, who chased Hamilton down to try to tell him <em>no, you aren’t second best. </em>Even if it couldn’t have been true.</p><p>How can Madison be so good to him? So good to someone that’s as much of a fuck-up as him? It’s all only because he doesn’t know. Doesn’t know that Hamilton is a fucking traitor to him. To his friendship, the friendship he gives so goddamn willingly, so goddamn unconditionally. Hamilton can’t let him know. Can’t let either of them know, can’t screw up the one good thing he’s had going for him ever since—</p><p>
  <em>You will never be satisfied.</em>
</p><p>No, maybe not—but at least he doesn’t have to be alone. That has to be enough. If he doesn’t give himself away, he doesn’t have to be alone. Even never belonging is better than being alone. Even the wet-slick slide of a knife between his ribs every time Jefferson sees Madison and smiles is better than being alone.</p><p>(Jefferson always smiles. Every morning, every afternoon, every evening, every time he sees Madison, even if he’s only been gone just for a handful of minutes. How can a person look at someone the way Jefferson does? How can Hamilton be so in over his fucking head?)</p><p>
  <em>Just stay alive. Stay alive—that’s enough.</em>
</p><p>“Good,” Madison tells him when he plays a piano chord right, manages a simple melody, and Hamilton can’t fucking look at him. Madison is too fucking good to him, and the guilt roils and  swells until it boils over. “That was very-well done,” he tells Hamilton, smiling, too good, and—</p><p>“Don’t look at me like that,” Hamilton snaps.</p><p>Madison stills, and the warmth in his eyes quickly cools to nothing. There was a time when Hamilton always mistook Madison’s aloofness for dislike, but he knows now that he just as often wears it as a shield. Uses detachment as a defense, distances himself from certain things, certain sorrows. Guilt swells fresh in Hamilton’s chest, and he rushes half-thinking headfirst into an apology.</p><p>“I mean, don’t—it’s that…” What can he say? “I can’t fucking—<em>Christ.” </em></p><p>Madison’s expression thaws the longer Hamilton struggles. He takes mercy, cuts Hamilton off with a hand placed on his shoulder, waits until Hamilton at last looks over.</p><p>“I understand,” he says kindly even though he can’t, not really, and it’s as easy as that. With that, Madison gives Hamilton forgiveness he never has earned nor deserves. </p><p><em> You don’t understand anything, </em>Hamilton thinks, his throat thick.</p><p>When Madison is gone and the house is empty, he finds himself back at the piano.</p><p>He looks at it—walks away. Paces. Comes back. Leaves. Paces. Again. He wants Madison and Jefferson to come back. Starts to worry. <em>Hasn’t been three hours even, stop worrying. </em>Back to the piano.</p><p>
  <em>God-fucking-damn-it-all.</em>
</p><p>Hamilton sits.</p><p>He fumbles his way through minor chords, keys clashing asynchronously every other measure—but he finds a rhythm after a few minutes, finds melodies, finds motifs and fitting chords. And the keys, the keys—they shriek.</p><p>He understands, then, Madison’s music. </p><p>He understands, understands that there’s something about it that takes everything that can’t ever be put into words, everything that he’s always going to have leave unsaid, and there’s so fucking much of it all—because there may never be another moment without this miserable-sick-guilt feeling, huh? He’s always, <em> always </em>going to be looking in from the outside. He’s always going to be drowning. Always going to be surrounded by what’s killing him, and it’s going to fucking hurt. It’s always, always going to fucking hurt.</p><p>
  <em>Don’t belong never belong never have never will don’t have anything don’t have anyone nothing nothing not yours, nothing, alone, not alone no one nothing, alone, alone, alone—</em>
</p><p>Hamilton only realizes he’s forgotten to breathe when he has to stop, gasp for air.</p><p>So. This is it.</p><p>This is where he is.</p><p>This is the price of not being alone. He’s traded it one form of loneliness for another, takes one form of hurt, imprecise, flat-edged, generalized loneliness, and he’s turned it into a fucking dagger-point. And where’s the light at the end of the tunnel?</p><p>There is no fucking light. It’s just him. Madison and Jefferson. Madison and Jefferson—and him. It has to be enough—but it isn’t.</p><p>It isn’t, and he may have moments where he’s happy, moments of belonging, but it will never be enough. It will never last, and—</p><p>
  <em> I will never be satisfied. </em>
</p><p>Hamilton sits, forearms falling onto the keys as he leans forward, resting his head on his arms. A minute passes, and at the end of it, he swears the floorboards behind him creak. But by the time he turns around, he’s alone.</p><p>If he ever wasn’t at all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>jesus. long end notes. it's been a minute! and, unfortunately, it will be another minute before i'm here again. i'm busy as fuck right now and need to take a little pressure off myself, so i'm putting DOAN on a semi-hiatus. except one, maybe two more updates before the end of the year. by 2021, i should be be out of crunch-time and back to 1-2 updates a month</p><p>in the meantime, here's the next side fic in this series to tide you over: <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27143296">so comes the cadenza</a></p><p>with that out of the way, some other housekeeping things<br/>-yes  i changed the number of chapters. yes you're welcome. yes i'm a fucking moron i can't believe i thought this would be finished in 100k--<br/>-madison gets a side fic that's concurrent to this chapter, but i haven't finished it and wanted to go ahead and publish this. so that's why madison's thoughts might seem underexplored in places--because he gets a whole fic for them LMAOO<br/>-look at this GORGEOUS DOAN PIECE OF FANART MY WIFE MADE: <a href="https://cyanspica.tumblr.com/post/629168688826875904/my-fantastic-wife-catoccoli-drew-me-fanart-from">HERE </a> AND ALSO AT THIS OTHER FANTASTIC PIECE OF FANART MADE BY MY FRIEND: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CFFf0iqDBrq/">HERE</a> .if you're an artist and you make fanart of anything i'll instantly die for you<br/>-finally, i spent upwards of fifty hours on each chapter. that's so much time!! especially when i'm as busy as i am!! if i can write 20k chapters in my free time and juggle two jobs, school, and a dozen other obligations, then leaving a thirty second comment should be no trouble at all. or at least message me somewhere to tell me you enjoyed! my tumblr is <a href="https://cyanspica.tumblr.com/">cyanspica</a> . don't be shy about messaging me or hitting up my ask box for anything!<br/>-also my birthday was last week so if you want to leave me a present go for leaving that long comment haha you have no idea how often i re-read them</p><p>alright--that's all! have a good week :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. A Damage You Can Never Undo</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this chapter title is from congratulations. congratulations to me for not being dead and for you for still being here after my very extended hiatus. it's emotional trauma hours! but if you haven't already, let yourself be traumatized by the james madison side fic <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27143296">here</a></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>To tell the truth, Hamilton always half-overlooked Madison before the outbreak. In a sea of flashier, louder politicians, Madison faded into the background. He understands the game now in a way he never would’ve otherwise: when Jefferson talks, Madison watches. He’s the rook backing Jefferson’s knight, the equal opposite reaction to every action.</p><p>When Jefferson talks, Madison watches. Not just Jefferson—he watches their surroundings too. </p><p>Watches him.</p><p>He’s sure that Madison doesn’t know the worst of it—not yet—but he’s not sure he wants to know everything Madison sees. He doesn’t want to know if Madison’s realized that Hamilton’s studying him because he doesn’t look at Jefferson unless he has to. Hamilton can still see Madison clearly, at least. </p><p>The draw of his brow over his serious face. The way he smiles: subdued little twists at the corners of his mouth. His eyes, sharp and unreadable.</p><p>Madison sees it all in clean lines, everything precise and perfect, exactly as it should be. Hamilton is an aberration in his world. A fucking traitorous bastard with a knife to his back.</p><p>Hamilton looks at Madison anxiously, watching, gauging, weighing what he knows.</p><p>And he doesn’t look at Jefferson unless he has to. That’s what’s best.</p><p>One by one, he begins to rebuff Jefferson’s little gestures of friendship—an invitation to play chess after dinner, an offer to loan him a book that they could discuss. He accepts just enough advances to avoid outright suspicion, but even when he does, he stays distant, at arm’s length—slips right underneath from the perfectly friendly arm around his shoulder, averts his eyes, eats faster at meals so he can escape the room sooner. </p><p>He looks away from Jefferson. </p><p>Madison is clever, perceptive, so skilled at reading him, and it’s him who will almost certainly be the first to find out that Hamilton has taken Jefferson’s friendship only to greedily, selfishly want for more. It doesn’t matter if he never says it aloud or never acts on it; the feelings are betrayal enough on their own.</p><p>And when they don’t go away like he so desperately hopes, he gradually has to come to terms with knowing that one day, he’ll slip. Make some mistake, smile at Jefferson in some way that pulls back the curtain. </p><p>And what then? What will he do?</p><p>Sometimes—only ever for fractions of a second—he catches Madison watching him with a look that he can’t quite make sense of.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton wakes up one morning to the smell of something he’s gone so long without that he can’t name it. It's a good smell, thankfully, something light and sweet and vaguely spicy. Infinitely better than the blood and rot he’s grown jaded to.</p><p>He rolls out of bed, tugs on pants and a shirt, then bounds down a flight of steps to follow the smell. To his surprise, it’s Jefferson in the kitchen, leaning over their camping stove. He doesn’t Hamilton for a moment, too occupied with the contents of a cast iron pan.</p><p>“Morning,” he says once he at last glances up—and then his mouth twists into a wry smile that’s almost pained. “Well, Happy Independence Day, huh?”</p><p>Hamilton blinks, abruptly stopping midway to the stove.</p><p>“It’s the fourth of July?”</p><p>“Mhm. Two-year anniversary of declaration, two year apocalypse anniversary. I’m being an optimist today, so happy fuckin’ birthday to the United States.”</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t know quite how to process that. He knew it was close, sure, even strongly suspected that they’d slipped from June into July, but still. Two years. </p><p>Two years since he was last in New York. Two years since he last went to class. Saw most of his friends. Two full years since he sat next to Laurens in their apartment and watched a detached Jefferson read from a piece of paper as the world started to crumble.</p><p>Things had been so different. Then, the space between Hamilton and Jefferson had been the irreconcilable distance between the couch and the TV. Now they’re separated by nothing but a few feet, but Laurens is on the other side of a curtain Hamilton can’t pierce.</p><p>(But who would he rather even reach?)</p><p>Two years. Not much time at all. Not much time to lose everything from his old life except the photo strip he’s left upstairs. Two years for Jefferson and Madison to go from enemies he hadn’t yet properly met to the only two people he has left.</p><p>Fuck, he wants a smoke.</p><p>“What are you making?” he at last asks, stiffly making his way to the stove and peering at the golden-brown swirls of what looks like dough inside the pan.</p><p>“Cinnamon rolls,” Jefferson responds right as Hamilton identifies them. Cinnamon: that’s the smell. “Never thought I’d say it, but thank god for fucking preservatives. Found a shelf-stable roll of dough in a house a few weeks back. Been saving ‘em for something special.”</p><p>“Fuck,” Hamilton says, mouth-watering. “These look fantastic.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, they’d be better if I coulda made ‘em from scratch, but…” </p><p>Hamilton dubiously arches his brows, glances askance. He’s sure Jefferson is leading him on so he can brag about some shit or another, but he takes the bait anyways.</p><p>“You know how to cook cinnamon rolls from scratch?”</p><p>“Mhm.” Self-satisfied, Jefferson smirks: definitely bait. “Used to be what I made on special occasions. Breakfast-in-bed.”</p><p>“I have a hard time believing you’d ever boiled a pot of water on your own before the outbreak.”</p><p>Jefferson spends a moment deciding whether he wants to look offended before admitting, </p><p>“Made it to my twenties before I did. Probably still wouldn’t’ve if I hadn’t had a girlfriend that told me she’d dump me if I didn’t learn.” He laughs at some memory Hamilton’s not privy to, mouth pulling into a smile that’s just a little sad. “She said it was, uh, pitiful that a grown-ass law student couldn’t even scramble an egg.”</p><p>The admissions dredge up a memory Hamilton had forgotten he even had. What seems like a lifetime ago, Eliza had always invited him to Sunday night dinners with her sisters. He remembers standing in the kitchen in Angelica’s apartment, remembers the yellow walls, but he can’t remember her face. He can’t see her in his memory, but he can imagine the way her brows arched at him as he stood at the sink, unimpressed.</p><p>
  <em>“You expect me to give you my blessing to date my sister when you don’t even know how to peel a potato?” </em>
</p><p>It's not her voice he hears, only his imagination’s best approximation, but it feels real anyways.</p><p>“Was Angelica the one who told you that?” Hamilton asks unthinkingly. Jefferson glances up, surprised, and, after he’s recovered from the shoot of sorrow that takes hold of his expression, he looks away. “Yeah. She wasn’t impressed with my cooking skills either.”</p><p>Hamilton crosses the kitchen to heat some water for coffee and tea; if Jefferson’s awake, Madison will be down soon. Silence stretches on, and there’s a look somewhere between horror and surprise on Jefferson’s face when Hamilton looks at him again.</p><p>“Christ, don’t tell me you dated her too.”</p><p>“No,” he replies—almost too fast. Jefferson settles down. His throat tightens, and he’s not sure why he admits it, but he does. “I dated Eliza.”</p><p>Jefferson’s head snaps back towards him. Visible surprises washes over his face before he turns away shaking his head, muttering something under his breath.</p><p>“What?” Hamilton sharply asks, a wave of defensiveness crashing over him, irritated that he’s opened up only to get a cold shoulder in return.</p><p>“You know, I was a politician. All my friends were politicians. Half my fucking exes were politicians. And yet you <em>still</em> manage to be the cagiest motherfucker I’ve ever known.”</p><p>“What, it’s a crime not to overshare? You wanna know my social security number too?”</p><p>“For fuck’s sake Hamilton, I didn’t even know you weren’t gay until twenty seconds ago.” Hamilton blinks, and while he’s still taken aback, Jefferson shakes his head, sighs. “But who fucking knows? Maybe you are and that was just a one-off. How would I know?”</p><p>He’s weirdly fucking hung up on it, obnoxiously petty as he fiddles with the pan. Hamilton scowls in response, steps closer up into his space even though some part of his mind chimes in that it’s a bad idea.</p><p>“C’mon, you seriously care about everyone I’ve dated?” </p><p>“I couldn’t give less of a damn about who you’ve dated. I care about feeling like I know you,” Jefferson sighs, runs a hand over his face. “I don’t know shit about whole swaths of your life. I don’t know anything about where you grew up or what it was like. I don’t know when you came to the American colonies. I don’t know anything about what was important to you.”</p><p>“Does any of that matter?” he asks, voice brittle. “It’s all gone now, isn’t it?”</p><p>Jefferson glances over to him.</p><p>“All of that matters to <em>me.</em> But… fuck it. Forget it,” he dismisses the entire thing, irritatingly flat. “I know you’ve got reasons you don’t wanna talk, and that’s <em>fine.”</em></p><p>Hamilton ignores him, goes back to his pot of water. Makes himself a cup of coffee, makes one for Jefferson. Lets the water heat up a little more for the tea.</p><p>“Bisexual,” he says at last, looking down into the mugs.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I’m bisexual. Since you wanted to know.”</p><p>There’s a pause, then Jefferson half-smiles at him. Hamilton feels like he should leave the room before he lets something that he can’t take back slip.</p><p>“Aren’t your rolls done?” he asks instead, breaking the moment.</p><p>Jefferson looks at him a second longer, then he too turns away.</p><p>“Just about,” he says, lifting the pan off the flame.</p><p>He rustles through cabinets until he finds a set of china, then pulls apart a third of the rolls onto the plate, drizzles them with white icing from a little plastic tub. Hamilton doesn’t have the patience to wait, just swipes a finger over the rim of icing and sucks.</p><p>“Kind of fucking fancy for breakfast, don’t you think?” Hamilton asks with an arched brow at the china as he grabs a cinnamon roll.</p><p>“Kind of fucking savage of you to just tear that shit apart bare-handed,” Jefferson shoots back. Hamilton just smirks, shoves another chunk of pastry into his mouth. “You’re fucking uncivilized.” Jefferson rolls his eyes. “I’ll be back downstairs to eat with you in a few minutes.”</p><p>“Back downstairs?” he asks, worry creasing his brow. “Madison sick or something?”</p><p>Vague discomfort flashes across Jefferson’s face, and Hamilton instantly suspects he’ll regret asking.</p><p>“Like I said a minute ago—I, uh, make breakfast in bed for special occasions.” At Hamilton’s blank look, he elaborates. “It’s the fourth. You know. Our anniversary.”</p><p>“Oh. Uh. Right.” He turns away, tries not to think too much. Doesn’t think about how he’s getting pushed to the side yet again. About the stab of jealousy in his chest, or the hot splash of guilt that follows. “Hold on.” He pours a glass of hot water, scrounges up a tea bag, hands it over. “Take a cup of tea up too. Make it full service.” His smile feels razor-thin.</p><p>Jefferson feels bad for him. Hamilton knows it with a certainty that prickles like needles under his sting. He thinks you’re fucking pathetic, Hamilton tells himself with so much vicious contempt that it surprises even him. He keeps all of it from showing, just pastes on a neutral, pleasant expression that he’s afraid Jefferson will see straight through.</p><p>“Don’t eat the rest of the rolls. I’ll be back to finish ‘em off with you,” Jefferson promises.</p><p>Hamilton waits just until he’s gone up the steps to slip his fingers in his pocket and clasp around the worn edges of an old photo strip that he rarely looks at anymore.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Jefferson comes back down as promised twenty minutes later. Madison’s much quieter footsteps pair with his, almost perfectly in sync. But Hamilton’s cleared out of the kitchen by then and doesn’t feel like talking, so he’s splayed out on the couch, pretending to be asleep. The footsteps slow then still at the base of the stairs.</p><p><em>“Is he asleep?”</em> Jefferson asks in quiet French</p><p>Madison pauses almost imperceptibly before answering. Hamilton gets the distinct impression that he’s not fooling him. Either way, Jefferson lingers a moment, edges nearer, then stops. Pulls the frayed blanket off the back of the couch and lays it over him. Goes back upstairs. Madison hesitates another moment, then follows. </p><p>Sometimes, laughter filters down the stairwell.</p><p>When he can’t stand pretending like he’ll ever fall asleep any longer, he throws off the blanket, leaves to get fresh air. An infected on the sidewalk outside clicks in greeting at the sound of the door opening; he puts a knife through its neck before it can think of coming inside. The rest of the street is empty and quiet at least, so he resolves to go scavenging.</p><p>It’s easy. Mindless. Rummaging through cabinets and drawers and closets, pick out things of interest. After so long, it feels less invasive than it should. Feels less like he’s rooting through the remains of lives that probably no longer exist. That might still exist—but only as violent scooped-out shells—and that’s worse. </p><p>There’s not much in the way of food anywhere—nearly every pantry has been picked clean after two years—but he comes up with other things. He finds a canister of gas, beer, a new insulated water bottle to replace the one he has that was dented to hell the week before while he bashed in an infected’s head—a close scrape.</p><p>And then there’s the last house. An infected in stained, discolored overalls lingers in the stairwell, but he takes it out with little fanfare. One room is full of charcoal drawings pinned to the wall—sketches of statues and bridges and landmarks. There are a few faces, but all are vaguely smudged, like the features are intentionally hard to make out. Maybe they are.</p><p>Hamilton ends up at the desk in the corner, looks down at an immaculate set of charcoals and a sketchpad. He doesn’t quite know what possesses him to do it, but he takes it, tucks it into his pack. There’s not much else of interest around until he finds the ladder leading up to the attic. He debates a moment, but at last climbs.</p><p>The space above is colorful, bright, lit by broad windows and skylights. It smells sour, which makes sense, because paint’s splattered everywhere. Dozens of canvases lay propped up against walls, on easels, in stacks. Flowerpots sit in the corner of the room, brown plants so wilted he’s sure they’ll crumble if he touches them.</p><p>Hamilton has never cared much about art, but he feels his heart squeeze in his chest as he approaches the closest easel and recognizes the skyline. Smoke rises in great waves up into a blood red sky as New York burns in the distance. In the foreground, the Brooklyn Bridge crumbles. Little smudges of paint that he knows must be people and infected spill over without direction. Somewhere in the jungle of burning buildings is his old apartment, he knows.</p><p>Something deeply wounded in his chest rears its head. He rips his eyes away. </p><p>The rest of the canvases are similarly grim: burning skylines, bombed-out shells of cities, destruction, chaos, death. The most disturbing paintings are those of infected—the close ups, the ones so lovingly and painstakingly painted that the gnashing teeth seemed as though they’re half a second from sinking into his flesh. Dead, bloodshot, vicious eyes stalk him as he moves through the room. </p><p>At the far end of the room, just in front of a full-length mirror, there’s a portrait of a young woman with thick dark hair and flat, resigned eyes. Parts of the painting are unclear, grow blurred, like the artist was painting with a shaky hand. And on the woman’s neck, there’s a deeply gouged wound with teeth marks on full display that looks just like his used to.</p><p>She’s wearing overalls.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Alexander?” Madison asks.</p><p>He snaps out of his thoughts, yanks his hand away from the scar on his neck, snaps,</p><p>"What?” </p><p>It doesn’t even faze Madison, Madison who’s good to him even when Hamilton doesn’t deserve it, when he has no right to call himself Madison’s friend in the first place. Guilt crashes over him, but Madison speaks before he can decide how to apologize.</p><p>“You looked like you were lost in thought.”</p><p>Hamilton feels even worse now, because that’s Madison’s polite euphemism for <em>you look fucking miserable.</em> He says it to Jefferson sometimes when he’s gone too long without saying something obnoxious—an invitation to get whatever is bothering him off his chest. </p><p>And Jefferson takes it, spills out his worries while Madison runs a thumb over the back of his hand, presses his lips to his knuckles. But that liberty isn’t Hamilton’s to take, and even if it were, there’s no way he could reveal everything that’s bothering him. </p><p>“I was,” Hamilton answers for the sake of common courtesy.</p><p>He shifts in his seat, makes it clear that he doesn’t want to talk, and Madison reluctantly goes back to his conversation with Jefferson. Hamilton listens halfheartedly, but it’s something about an opera that he doesn’t know about or care to know about, so he drifts back into his mind, peers out the window of the Escalade. They’ve been in the car a couple hours already—Jefferson insisted on driving—and they’re somewhere in Maryland. </p><p>The close proximity kickstarts his claustrophobia, and he desperately, desperately wants to get out of the car, escape to somewhere where Madison and Jefferson can’t look back at him and wonder what’s weighing on his mind. He closes his eyes and tries to block them out .</p><p>It eventually occurs to him that the car’s gone silent save for the quiet piano through the speakers. Hamilton glances up to the front, finds Madison dozing, Jefferson humming along to the melody. He shouldn’t, but with Madison asleep and Jefferson focused on the road, he looks.</p><p>At his broad shoulders and ridiculous fashion. The ear whose top third is missing, that Jefferson hides beneath his hair, the one Hamilton barely ever catches a glimpse of because Jefferson’s so goddamn vain that he’s still not over it. </p><p>He doesn’t look at Jefferson’s mouth. That, he avoids for the sake of self-preservation. </p><p>But he takes in everything else, feels his chest grow tight with everything he can never say. None of it is his to notice, and none of it is his to say, let alone appreciate. </p><p>It’s not fucking fair. Nothing is fair.</p><p>Jefferson makes a sound, drawing Hamilton from his reverie. He jolts, flinches, goes stiff when he sees Jefferson’s eyes are on him in the rear view mirror and most likely have been for longer than is unobjectionable. His mouth twists into a mocking scoff.</p><p>“You’re pathetic, you know.” He turns around in his seat, white smile flashing sharp. Hamilton feels an ingrained instinct to snarl, to throw up defenses, but he finds all he can is wilt, crumple inwards beneath the weight of humiliation, the hot flash of loathing in Jefferson’s eyes. His limbs feel heavy. His tongue tastes like blood and lead. “Some fucking friend you are.”</p><p>The car jolts to a stop—and Hamilton gasps awake, disoriented, confused, a gaping hole in his chest where his heart should be. It takes him a moment to differentiate dream from reality, fact from fiction, and by the time he’s settled enough to sink back into his seat, Jefferson’s worried eyes are on him.</p><p>“Do you want—?”</p><p>“No,” he snaps, sharply enough he just knows he’ll put Jefferson into a snit.</p><p>Predictably, his eyes narrow. He turns away scowling.</p><p><em>Great, now you’ve been a fucking jackass to </em>both<em> of them today. Good fucking job.</em></p><p>He doesn’t care. He tells himself he doesn’t so many times he almost believes it, tells himself that he’s not still bruised from something his subconscious told him—because he’s <em>not</em>.         </p><p>Hamilton hastily slides out of the car<em>—fucking coward, just run away, why don’t you?—</em>and looks around, blinking in surprise when his eyes find blue water and sand where he expects to see none. They’re at a beach, which doesn’t quite match Hamilton’s geographical knowledge of where they are—or where they should be. </p><p>“—you said we were in <em>Maryland</em>,” Madison remarks as he exits the passenger’s side, clearly having arrived at the same conclusion. </p><p>"Mhm, and I strategically misled you,” Jefferson drawls, coming around the front of the car to flash an obnoxiously self-satisfied grin. “Happy anniversary, baby.”</p><p>He tunes out their conversation and turns away, digs into their surroundings. There’s a nice little white house off to the side of the driveway—then just beyond that, a tall stark white lighthouse. The ocean is endless, blue, and the beach is wide and crisp white. He sees a dark figure staggering on the shore in the distance, but its movements are lurching, uncoordinated. He makes a note to go down and take care of it later.</p><p>“So where are we?” Hamilton asks once Madison and Jefferson untangle from a sweet kiss. He tries to sound upbeat, an olive branch for his irritability earlier. “Not in Maryland, I’m guessing.” </p><p>Jefferson’s eyes narrow a second, but he accepts the gesture.</p><p>“Nah. This is ‘bout twenty miles north of Jamestown.” He motions to the lighthouse. “Jane Jefferson Memorial Lighthouse—commissioned by my father after my mother died. Used to spend weekends and summers vacationing here. It’s nice and secluded, good to get away.” </p><p>“Damn. You had a beach house to escape to, and I had the corner bodega.” It’s a joke, but there’s an uncomfortable note in this tone that humor can’t hide.</p><p>He can tell there’s more history here than Jefferson’s letting on, some special significance the place holds—Jefferson wouldn’t have driven them all the way out here if there wasn’t. Madison wouldn’t look as touched otherwise.</p><p>Hamilton turns away.</p><p>“Well, I’ll let you get settled in. Gonna, uh, check out the area,” he says.</p><p>“I’ll come with—”</p><p>“No, it’s all good. Consider it an anniversary gift.” He checks his watch—eleven thirty—tries not to think about just why he’s clearing out. “I’ll be back at three.”</p><p>“Don’t need that long,” Jefferson tells him, an edge of guilt in his voice.</p><p>“Yeah, I’m sure you don’t,” Hamilton shoots back, brushing off the fucked-up blend of guilt and jealousy and bitterness in his throat. He forces a smirk, calls out over his shoulder as he turns to head nowhere at all but away. “But maybe you would if you’d try being more considerate.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He kills the infected down at the beach. There’s blood on his hands, so he dips his hands into the water, washes himself clean. Pulls off his sneakers and socks and walks barefoot in the surf. </p><p>He feels like he’s looking for someone while he walks. There’s no one to find, he knows. He’s not even sure who he’s looking for to begin with, but the feeling sticks to him like a sandburr in his heel. Because whatever he’s looking for is gone. He can’t find it.</p><p>For a split second, he thinks he hears footsteps sinking in the soft hand behind him, but when he turns, there’s no one there.</p><p>There never was.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It’s past three when he finally makes his way back.  </p><p>Music drifts from the house as he returns—piano, Madison playing—but something else too. Another instrument. There’s a second melody: elegant, glassy, pretentious notes from some unknown instrument drifting outside. Hamilton almost goes on edge, but reason dictates that there’s no one else it could be but Jefferson. </p><p>The duet finishes just as he makes it to the front porch. As he quietly steps inside, he just catches the tail end of Jefferson saying,</p><p>“...didn’t say I didn’t like it. It’s just… uh, different.”</p><p>Hamilton debates listening a second longer, eavesdropping, but he can’t. The last goddamn thing he wants is another fucking secret. As he walks by the door, they take note of him and go silent, and, fuck, maybe he should’ve just left and come back later. Maybe he should leave, let them finish without him there to fuck things up.</p><p>But Jefferson looks strangely awkward and off-kilter, and Madison looks distinctly uncertain, almost grateful to have had him interrupt. It doesn’t track with anything he’s seen from either of them before, so he doesn’t leave. Instead, he looks at the instrument in Jefferson’s hand—a brown wood stringed thing—and rolls his eyes.</p><p>“Leave it to you to play the only instrument more elitist than the piano.”</p><p>“Mmhm,” Jefferson preens after an indistinct pause, falling almost perfectly back into obnoxious overconfidence. “Even better: it’s a Stradivarius.”</p><p>“Is that some kind of reference I’m too poor to understand?” he asks; Jefferson falls just as comfortably back into bragging as Hamilton does into their bickering.</p><p>“Well, it woulda been a multi-million dollar gift two years ago, so I think that counts for something. If you had any taste in music, you’d know.” He laughs, but it’s playful, nothing mocking in the sound. Hamilton almost wishes there was. </p><p>Jefferson studies him a moment longer, smiling brightly, then tips his head towards a loveseat in the corner of the room, smiles wider. </p><p>“Sit down. I’ll play something for you, show what an actual violin player sounds like. Trust me, you've never heard a real one before," he brags, blustering louder than ever to make up for whatever threw him off earlier. "Pick something. Whatever you like! I’m feelin’ generous.”</p><p>Beside Jefferson, Madison blinks, brows lifting in surprise, but he schools his expression just as quickly. It’s so out-of-place that Hamilton files the reaction neatly away and resolves to examine it later. Fuck, he’s been off their entire conversation. He's not a talker like Jefferson, thank god, but he always has <em>something</em> to add.</p><p>“The Flight of the Bumblebee,” Hamilton tells Jefferson after a moment.</p><p>It’s one of the few songs he knows violinists play, and, more importantly, he remembers Madison commenting once on how long it took to learn the song’s piano arrangement, so he doesn’t really think Jefferson will be able to do it. He doesn’t need to boost the man’s ego too much. And he doesn’t need to be any more impressed than he already is.</p><p>Maybe screwing it up will bruise Jefferson’s pride enough that he’s quiet enough for an hour or two. Just long enough to give Hamilton some rest. Enough time for things to feel like normal again. Because he misses it so fucking much, misses the friendship without the threat of them finding out. Even then he was on the outside, but at least it was easier. Easier to be on the outside of a friendship than someone’s heart.</p><p>Jefferson rolls his eyes. He probably sees what Hamilton’s trying to do, just without fully understanding why. At least he doesn’t call him out on it. </p><p>He just lifts the violin. Takes the bow. And he plays.</p><p>It’s a little sloppy. A little unsteady. The notes clog up in places, and it’s probably slower than it was written to be. But it’s got feeling. More feeling than Hamilton thinks classical music does—Jefferson’s touch, he figures. It’s good. Really good.</p><p>And it dries out Hamilton’s throat like few things ever have.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The two of them head down to the beach for a walk while the sun sets. They invite Hamilton along. He declines once, twice, but Madison at last convinces him to come along with a look that’s mixed parts exasperation and a demand. </p><p>It’s later in the evening, almost sunset by the time they leave, so it’s not so unbearably hot with the breeze. Hamilton just lingers half a step behind and zones out from their conversation. He finds himself thinking instead, and despite urging himself not to let his mind wander that way, his mind grows green with jealousy.</p><p>They’re so goddamn synced up, even when they walk. Jefferson, that much taller, slows his long strides and Madison, shorter, speeds up just so to make their paces perfectly aligned. It’s effortless. Entirely unconscious. Years and years of partnership in a movement. </p><p>He’s lucky their anniversary is on the date of the outbreak. It gives him an excuse to be withdrawn, cranky, upset. It’s lucky, because he doesn’t know what he wants. If he wants to be Madison or to be in his place. If he wants Jefferson to be perfectly synced up to him instead. But he’s not Madison. He could never be him, and Jefferson could never love anyone else as much. Even if Madison weren’t around, Hamilton could never make Jefferson as happy.</p><p>“Hamilton?” Madison asks.</p><p>He snaps to attention, but forces down the snarl in his throat, swallows hard, gets out a much more amicable, “What?”</p><p>“I asked what you thought of the beaches.”</p><p>“Oh.” His eyes dart to the ocean. “Uh, well, it’s nice. Not quite the Caribbean, I guess.”</p><p>“If it’s not good enough for you, I could sail us down there,” Jefferson laughs.</p><p>“You know how to sail?" </p><p>“Sure. Me and Sam and John learned at summer camp.” He predicts the sarcastic curl of Hamilton’s lips and deprives him of the pleasure of bitching by cocking a brow and adding, “Mhm, you’re right, that <em>is</em> elitism in practice.”</p><p>Hamilton’s scowl deepens, and Jefferson’s smirk widens. <em>I fucking hate you,</em> Hamilton tells himself, desperately wishing it were still true. It was so much easier to hate him instead.</p><p>It was so much easier to hate him when he was nothing but an elitist asshole in Hamilton’s mind. How the markers of their childhood mange to be so wildly fucking present even into the end of the world astounds him—the way they talk, dress, act, how Madison and Jefferson can’t stand to rough it like he can, haven’t ever slept contorted into all the strangest shapes to find at least some semblance of protection, how they get grumpy after two nights of sleeping in the Escalade in a row, how they never feel compelled to skip meals—and sure, they’ll ration if their food is low, but not like he would. Not like he did.</p><p>Jefferson glances back out towards the ocean, thoughtful. Hamilton watches him for a moment and tries to tell himself their lives had been too different, too irreconcilable to make a relationship work anyways. He can’t ever be Madison, and he could never fit with Jefferson the same way.</p><p>“Long time since I last sailed, but I was half-decent at it. Not as good as John, but bet I could still do it.” He sucks in a breath through his teeth, shakes his head mournfully. “Fuck, what I wouldn’t give to go back to the Bahamas. Pool-side bar at a resort sounds damned good.”</p><p>“A cold drink would be nice,” Madison says, undoing another button of his shirt. “Every day, I mourn the loss of air conditioning more and more.”</p><p>“Then you probably don’t wanna go live in the Bahamas now,” Hamilton dryly remarks.</p><p>“You lived there, so guess you’d know,” Jefferson concedes. </p><p>Hamilton sends him a look out of the corner of his eyes.</p><p>“I grew up in the Caribbean,” he replies coolly, gratified when Jefferson makes an <em> oh, fuck </em>face. He forces himself to suppress any lingering irritation, shrugs. “But at least it’s windy. Forgot how fucking stale the air feels away from the water.”</p><p>“The beaches are nice, at least?”</p><p>“Guess so. Didn’t really go down to the water the last little bit I was in Nevis.” He wets his lips, an old flare of anxiety making itself known. “Not a big fan after the hurricane.”</p><p>There’s a half a second where they both process that, which is just as long Hamilton needs to realize that, no, he doesn’t think he’s ever mentioned the hurricane before. He glances sideways, pleading silently that they’ll just drop it, but only Madison catches the look.</p><p>“You were in the Caribbean during the hurricane? The one back in, what, ‘06?” Jefferson asks, concern creasing deep into his brow alongside something soft Hamilton finds he can’t stand. </p><p>“Thomas,” Madison says, gentle but pointed, but Jefferson either doesn’t hear him or doesn’t pay attention, because he zeroes in on Hamilton with a pity that makes him tense up.</p><p>“I, uh, I’m sorry. Saw the clips afterwards. Whole fucking archipelago got flattened.”</p><p>“I know. I was there,” Hamilton snaps, harsher than he means to, but he’s in such an unstable frame of mind between their anniversary and everything else that he can’t soften his words in time. “And I also know that you both were in office working on the relief package—which wasn’t fucking enough, by the way.”</p><p>Jefferson’s sorrow twists into guilt. He looks genuinely upset, Hamilton realizes—something he didn’t want at all. Good fucking job, he snarls at himself. He knows it’s not fair of him to blame them, certainly not when Jefferson is just trying to comfort him. </p><p>“You know just as well as we do that the colonies collect no taxes. What we send to fund intercolonial relief comes out of what money we get from England,” Madison firmly points out, coming between them before Hamilton can do any more damage. “The responsibility laid with England to supply appropriate aid—which they did not.</p><p>Hamilton forces himself to breathe, inhales sharply before he’s able to concede. </p><p>“No. They didn’t do a goddamn thing.”</p><p>Their walk is quieter after that. Hamilton finds he regrets ever having come along at all.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Madison and Jefferson go up in the lighthouse to watch the sunset. He doubts they would’ve invited him, but he makes himself unavailable anyways. Once they’re out of the house, he retreats out of the stuffy house to sit on the back porch overlooking the ocean. </p><p>It’s nicer now that the sun has set, but his mind won’t slow down enough to appreciate a damn thing. It’s all focused on every conversation he’s had that day: backtracking and reviewing all he’s said, every expression he’s made, trying to track if he’s let through any hints slip. </p><p>What he finds is that he’s fucking awful. He’s miserable, and he’s fucking miserable to be around. He feels like shit. He <em>is</em> a piece of shit. </p><p>Self-loathing rolls over him in a wave, sours the taste on his tongue.</p><p>Was there a single goddamn moment the entire day where he was happy?</p><p>Hamilton goes to bed before the two of them come down, but he’s awake hours later when they come in. They murmur in whispers that don’t quite make it through the door, but the thought that they’re there together, the knowledge that they’re going to sleep in each other’s arms fills him with aching loneliness from his fingertips to his chest.</p><p>He dreams about yellow skies and rain and death and blood dripping from his neck. Voices cry in his dreams, and he can’t find them. He can hear them. But he can’t find them. Can never get to them. Only hears them cry. Can’t reach them.</p><p>It’s worse when the crying stops and even worse when he wakes up and his first thought is to search for Jefferson and Madison.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He goes crabbing with his line and net before the sun’s even fully risen. He needs to do something, needs to distract himself somehow. The thought of being around when Madison or Jefferson wakes up seems too oppressive to bear. There’s a set of foldable fishing poles in the Escalade, but the sets of keys are with Jefferson and Madison, so he improvises, dips back into childhood memories to remember what to do.</p><p>The line is just a fishing string he’s found lying around, the net an old dip net. A weight and canned tuna on the end of the line, he casts the line into the water, waits. Within half an hour, he’s remembered his old technique: wait, reel, net. He catches half a dozen crabs before ten, spends the rest of the early afternoon scavenging up a decent bucket of clams and oysters. </p><p>Lunch is good: Jefferson supposedly spent a fair amount of time in the old Creole colonies down by the Mississippi, manages to whip up a half-decent seafood boil, even though he spends the whole time complaining about the absence of butter. They compensate with spices and hot sauce.</p><p>“Mm. You’re gonna have to teach me how to catch ‘em like this,” Jefferson says between bites of crab. “Fuck. I’d wake up before sunrise too to eat like this every day.”</p><p>“I woke you up when I left?”</p><p>“Yeah, well, you know how it is.”</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t, but there’s some look shared between Madison and Jefferson he can’t quite decipher. He wonders if he should try. But he’s afraid of what he’ll find if he looks too hard—just like how he’s afraid of what they’d find if they did the same. He eats silently. </p><p>He knows that today he doesn’t have the two years since the outbreak excuse, knows that he needs to at least put on some pretense of happiness not to rouse suspicion, but it seems like too much to manage for the moment. He’s still hurting from all of yesterday.</p><p><em>Maybe you should leave,</em> he bitterly thinks.</p><p>And at first, he only means it as a barb to himself, some awful thought to throw in his own face. Something he doesn’t ever intend to actually follow through on.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It’s rare to hear them argue, but that sound is what draws him to the bathroom. As he approaches, their voices filter out from the bathroom into the hall.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” Jefferson asks, anxiety evident in his voice. </p><p>“I, ah, don’t know how to start,” Madison admits, The texture is… different from mine.”</p><p>“You <em> told </em>me you helped cut your siblings’ hair!”</p><p>“Yes, I told you I helped my mother cut their hair—when I was <em> fifteen!</em> I’m <em> thirty, </em> Thomas!"</p><p>“Even if it’s pretty fucking bad, it’s not like I’m gonna end up bald, right?” At Madison’s responding silence, Jefferson’s voice had gone up half a pitch, grown shrill. <em>“Right?” </em></p><p>The bathroom door’s open, and even though he shouldn’t, he peeks through.</p><p>Jefferson sits on the edge of the tub, his tight curls neatly sectioned off with bands, Madison standing haplessly behind him with hair shears in hand. It’s one of the few moments Hamilton has seen Madison looking absolutely terrified—at least when there was no imminent threat of death.</p><p>“I’ll try my best,” Madison just tells Jefferson, despair plain in his voice.</p><p>“It’s like riding a bicycle, though, isn’t it? You’ll remember how as you go along?”</p><p>“Thomas, have you ever even <em> ridden </em>a bicycle?”</p><p>“I’ve ridden an exercise bike—same difference, isn’t it?”</p><p>“How the fuck have you never ridden a bike before?” Hamilton interjects. They both turn to him, surprised. “Did you seriously get chauffeured around your whole childhood?”</p><p>“No,” Jefferson says, but he pauses too long not to be lying. “What do you want, anyways?”</p><p>“Nothing,” he replies, eyes narrowing at Jefferson’s words. “Just came to see what was wrong.” He motions to the shears in Madison’s hands. “Can’t you just cut your own damn hair?”</p><p>“No,” he says again, burying his face in hands. “I paid four hundred dollars for a haircut every two months before the outbreak, and every damn time I try to do it myself, it looks like I took a goddamn pair of garden shears to my head. Go ahead. Fucking laugh.”</p><p>Hamilton almost does—but there’s genuine distress written into Jefferson’s features, genuine dread in his voice, and he stays silent. He knows how particular Jefferson is, how vain he is, how he uses it as some kind of defense mechanism to pretend nothing’s changed.</p><p>His eyes slide over to Madison, who looks vaguely despairing. He must know all these things. Not want to be the one who fucks up something so important to Jefferson.</p><p>“I can cut it,” Hamilton offers, swallowing. “Or try to, at least.”</p><p>He doesn’t miss the way Madison’s face lights up with gratefulness. Jefferson raises his head from his hands, sends him a vaguely suspicious look.</p><p>“You can?”</p><p>“I cut…” <em> John’s, </em>he almost says. But the name gets caught on a lump in his throat, and he has to swallow before he can speak. “...hair with a texture kinda like yours. Curly hair, I mean. A few times. I, uh, sort of know what I’m doing.”</p><p>Jefferson swallows, looks between him and Madison. Then, finally, just shakes his head.</p><p>“Christ. I’m gonna lose it all from breakage anyways if I don’t.” He looks vaguely nauseous, actually closes his eyes before he says, “Just get it over with.”</p><p>Hamilton feels anxiety lick up and down his spine as he takes the shears from Madison, steps up to study Jefferson’s hair. Jefferson cracks open one eye, forces a smile.</p><p>“Guess this how you know I seriously trust you, huh?”</p><p>Hamilton manages a laugh, but the words cut deeper than he thinks they were meant to.</p><p>He redoes the sectioning in Jefferson’s hair. Gets it damp. Slowly cuts inch by careful inch, as little as he possibly can with each snip. Madison and Jefferson talk to one another, but he tunes it out, tries to concentrate, not fuck this up as he works through the sections. </p><p>Madison says something; Jefferson responds. Madison says something again, and this time, it’s Hamilton’s name. He looks up, focus ruptured.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“You just never cease to impress me is all,” Madison says after a moment, laughing quietly.</p><p>That too means more to him than he thinks it should. </p><p>“It’s just hair,” says Hamilton as he makes the last few cuts. “Means nothing. It’ll grow back if he thinks it looks awful.”</p><p>He knows it’s a lie, but he tells himself that anyways as he steps away, lets Jefferson stand up. He makes a beeline for the mirror, face pointedly blank as he stares down his reflection. Shifts on his feet to see himself from the side and the back. The ghost of a smile breaks on his face as he glances sideways to Madison, who’s already read exactly what Jefferson thinks given his soft smile.</p><p>“So, Jemmy. Do I look good?”</p><p>“Of course you do. And your hair is fine.”</p><p>“Well, then, Hamilton,” Jefferson says, smile widening as he turns around. “Guess you’re better at haircuts than debates.”</p><p>“Fuck off. I’m still holding these,” he threatens, stabbing vaguely in his direction with the scissors. </p><p>“Please, I could take your ass in a fight.”</p><p>“Alexander is scrappier than you,” Madison mildly remarks. “I would refrain from placing bets.”</p><p>“At least your boyfriend’s got some fucking sense,” Hamilton laughs—and for a moment, everything is alright in the world.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Your hair’s getting long too, you know,” Jefferson notes that night, and Hamilton half-startles, turns to see him unexpectedly leaning against the bathroom door frame.</p><p>“Don’t fucking sneak up on me,” he snaps on instinct, angrily setting down his toothbrush. </p><p>“Well, <em> I </em>can’t help if I’ve got the feet of a thief.”</p><p>Hamilton scowls without meaning it, trying to calm his racing heart. He breathes in, breathes out, then turns back to the mirror. Jefferson’s right: his hair<em> is </em> getting long—just long enough to fall past his shoulders now. Hell, he could probably graduate from a bun to a braid if he knew how to do one.</p><p>“Yeah. Didn’t realize it’d grown out so much,” he agrees, trying to compensate for snapping earlier. He threads fingers through the strands. Frowns. “Guess I should cut it soon.”</p><p>“I didn’t say that,” Jefferson replies, almost affronted at the possibility. He steps into the cramped bathroom, looks Hamilton over again—too long and too thoroughly for his tastes, then nods his approval, grins just a little as he reaches out to brush a few stray strands out of his eyes. “I think it suits you. Looks good.”</p><p>And his heart wrenches in his chest.</p><p>How the fuck can a single person make him feel like that with one stupid compliment? How is he… <em> why </em>is he letting someone make him feel like that?</p><p>“Long hair’s a liability,” Hamilton flatly remarks after a moment, averting his eyes to the mirror. “I should’ve cut yours shorter today.”</p><p>“Don’t I fucking know it,” Jefferson laughs, tugging on one of his curls and letting it spring back up just because he fucking can, apparently. “But whatever James likes, right?”</p><p>Hamilton thinks Madison has little to do with it, but he doesn’t say as much. He just looks back to his reflection. When his hair is down, if it falls just right, it hides the scar on his neck. Makes him look a little more like he used to. </p><p>There’s a brief moment where he wonders if Jefferson keeps his hair long to help hide his ear.</p><p>“I’ll cut it tomorrow morning,” he says without conviction. </p><p>He doesn’t.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>His nightmares are worse the second night they’re there. </p><p>Eventually, Hamilton can’t stand lying still and staring up at the ceiling anymore. He creeps downstairs, lights a candle, grabs the closest book he can find—something Madison’s been reading about Greek oligarchies. It’s so goddamn boring and dry that, in a miraculous stroke of luck, he drifts off again on the sofa. </p><p>It’s light out when he wakes up to the sound of quiet footsteps on the stairs. By the time he identifies the source as Madison and Jefferson, they’ve already rounded the bottom of the stairs. They haven’t seen him, he realizes as the sounds of footsteps trail towards the kitchen. There’s the sound of shuffling plates and pans, Madison humming some lilting melody Hamilton’s heard him play on the piano, the sound of water boiling for tea and coffee.</p><p>“What would you like for breakfast, dear?” Madison asks.</p><p>“Fuck, baby, I don’t know,” Jefferson replies, and Hamilton can hear the eye roll in his voice. “We have such compelling choices. Cereal, protein bars, or oatmeal. Hardest damn question I gotta answer every day.”</p><p>“I suppose that means you’d rather have cereal over the fruit I so painstakingly climbed to pick?” Madison lightly sighs, and there’s the sound of something dropping onto the marble counter.</p><p>“Holy shit, Jemmy. Where the fuck did you find these?”</p><p>“A few streets over. There’s a fig tree in someone’s backyard that I noticed the day before. I went over yesterday evening.”</p><p>“Well, shit, you made the right fucking choice, ‘cause I woulda gone and broken my neck climbing for 'em.”</p><p>Madison laughs, light and clear. There’s the sound of movement, Jefferson humming contentedly, slow kisses. Hamilton closes his eyes tighter, tries to block it out, fall back asleep. He doesn’t want this intimate glimpse into their private world. He absolutely doesn’t fucking need to hear the pleased little sound that drifts out of the kitchen, or the image his mind supplies an image of muscled arms encircling a waist, hips slotted together, his stomach heating—</p><p>“I’m not going to blow you in the kitchen,” Madison tells Jefferson, but he’s amused and playful in a way that Hamilton rarely hears. </p><p>“Mm, who said anything about <em>you</em> blowing <em>me?”</em> Jefferson shoots back, and there’s a long beat of silence before Madison must shake his head because Jefferson huffs, disappointed.</p><p>“Alexander will be up before long,” Madison reasons. </p><p>“Mm. He’s still asleep?”</p><p>“His door was still closed when we passed. The Lord knows the man needs the rest.”</p><p>“Ain’t that the fucking truth?” Jefferson exhales, laughing humorously.</p><p>The conversation in the kitchen shifts to more mundane things—what they might have for dinner, whether they might head further inland once they leave for someplace else—but Hamilton’s mind is elsewhere. Their voices fade into the background.</p><p>Is this always how they talk when he’s not around? Light and playful? With more laughter shared between the two of them in the space of a few minutes than Hamilton usually hears from either in a whole day? Are they in a constant state of censorship around him?</p><p>Christ. They sound happier when he’s not around.</p><p>And that begs the question whether they actually are.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The third night, there’s a crack of thunder that jolts him awake, sends him scrambling for the pistol beneath his pillow. He has a flash of a moment where he’s back beneath swirling yellow skies in Nevis before he remembers where he is, but the unease lingers enough that he knows he won’t get back to sleep. He sits up. It’s pitch fucking black in the room with the clouds blotting out the moonlight, but he always keeps a lighter and candle by his bed for that reason. Flashlights, he saves for emergencies, for situations where candles can’t cut it.</p><p>The room feels distinctly uneasy in the weak light. His first thought is to see if Madison and Jefferson are already awake until he reminds himself he can’t do that any longer. Not if he’s trying to keep his distance. His second thought, then, is to read. But each clap of thunder breaks his focus, and the pounding rain beats unease into his chest. He’s back on Nevis, helpless, rain flooding into the house, up to his ankles, rising past his waist, up over his head—</p><p>Hamilton tastes blood when he at last rolls out of bed, resolving to pace around the house until the worst of the storm passes. There’s something unsettled prickling beneath his skin as he moves towards the bathroom, but it abates at the scraps of conversation drifting through the door halfway down the hall. It takes him a moment to place that the two of them are speaking in French—which means they don’t want him to overhear.</p><p>“<em> ... he’s up?” </em>Jefferson murmurs.</p><p>
  <em> “Dear, he’d wake up… dropped a pin outside his door.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Think he… storm because of … ?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “We… always check on him. </em>
</p><p>He shouldn’t, knows he shouldn’t, but he creeps closer anyways.</p><p>
  <em> “... might still be upset from… been off since then. Don’t know.” </em>
</p><p><em> “It’s like I told you, Thomas,” </em>Madison says, kind, sympathetic—and even though Hamilton suddenly finds himself desperate to know just what Madison means, the floorboard beneath his foot betrays him with a wooden shriek.</p><p>He swears silently to himself, then hastily steps forward and knocks to avoid looking like he’s been eavesdropping. There’s a short pause, footsteps, then Madison answers the door. He’s shirtless, which Hamilton notices right before he registers that he’s wearing nothing at all but boxers. It’s the most jarring thing that’s happened to him in weeks: Madison is never anything less than fully put together in front of him.</p><p>So it’s a shock, and not only because it turns out that Madison is much broader through the shoulders than he would’ve thought. He wills himself to push the knowledge out of his mind and prays his face shows nothing.</p><p>“Sorry,” he apologizes, swallowing. “I, uh… was going to walk around for a bit and heard you talking. Thought I might see if one of you wanted to play chess or something.”</p><p>“Can do you one better than that,” a voice calls from further back in the room. “Luckily for you.”</p><p>Their room is candlelit too, so Hamilton can barely make Jefferson out as he sits up and stretches in bed, bare muscles flexing. Lightning flashes, brightening the room just enough that Hamilton can make out the vague red outline of what looks like a handprint on his hip. But before he can fully process it, he’s saved by a resounding crack of thunder, flinches so soundly any reaction is dulled. Madison, oddly uncertain for a split second, lays a hand lightly against his forearm for just a moment. Hamilton refuses to meet his eyes.</p><p>“Yeah? If it’s gonna involve a violent fucking hangover, I’ll pass,” he tells Jefferson, swallowing.</p><p>“Christ, <em> you </em> think <em> you </em>have bad hangovers? Wait ‘til you’re over thirty.” Jefferson stands, swipes up a shirt discarded on the floor, throws it over his head. “But nah, that’s not it. C’mon.”</p><p>“You’ll poison yourself,” Madison dryly warns them both, in tune with whatever Jefferson is alluding to. He rolls his eyes. “Alexander, I beg you to exercise your common sense.”</p><p>Hamilton shifts on his feet. His common sense tells him he should just go back to bed, turn down whatever Jefferson is suggesting. But he’s only a man, and he’s already dug himself halfway into this hole by almost getting caught eavesdropping anyways.</p><p>“You find Ambien?” he asks, brows arched. “Because the last damn time I slept more than six hours was when I got into someone’s old stash of that shit.”</p><p>“Sure, somethin’ like that,” Jefferson remarks cryptically, setting off towards the stairs. </p><p>Madison lingers just long enough to shoot Hamilton a half-chiding look before retreating in their bedroom to presumably get dressed too. Hamilton doesn’t linger, heads downstairs after Jefferson and watches as he pulls down a painting. Behind it, there’s a painted-over panel that flips open to reveal a wall safe. Hamilton scoffs.</p><p>“Jesus, have you never watched a single mystery movie? That’s so fucking cliché.”</p><p>“Yeah, and clearly no one’s found it anytime in the past two years, so who won?” Jefferson retorts as he inputs the combination. </p><p>Hamilton stares, then crosses the room, eyes widening as Jefferson extracts a cigar box. The cigars look well-wrapped but they’re plain, no cigar band in sight, and the smell isn’t—</p><p>“Holy shit. Are those joints?” he gasps, wide-eyed.</p><p>“Uh-huh. Been sitting around for two-odd years since the last time Sam and I came down here to shoot the shit. Forgot about them ‘til earlier today.”</p><p><em> “You </em> smoked weed?”</p><p>“What, you mistook me for a Puritan?” Jefferson laughs. “Please, Hamilton. I went to law school. I’ve done more damn drugs than you’ll see your entire life.”</p><p>“I've heard the stories,” Madison mentions, a certain tension set in his shoulders.</p><p>“So, what? Thomas Jefferson, Golden Boy of the South grew up passing around joints? Damn. I guess celebrities really <em> are </em>just like us."</p><p>“Yeah, well, I cut way back on all that once I got to campaigning. Had to keep a cleaner image—kicked the drugs, kept the womanizing. Least in the eyes of the media,” he smirks. He drops his eyes back towards the cigar box. “So? You wanna smoke or not? Because I'm not gonna peer pressure you like we're fucking twelve if you don't. Happy to kick your ass at chess instead if not—up to you if you wanna endure the humiliation.”</p><p>“You in?” Hamilton interrupts with a look towards Madison.</p><p>“I’ll abstain.” He sends Jefferson a look that Hamilton finds he can’t read before he settles onto the sofa with a sigh and retrieves his Greek book. “I dislike drugs.”</p><p>“Except alcohol?”</p><p>“That’s different,” he replies impassively.</p><p>Hamilton’s tongue prickles with the urge to argue, but the temptation of getting high as soon as possible wins out. Fuck, it’s been so long since he had a chance to partake. He plucks a thick joint from Jefferson’s case, drops onto the sofa opposite Madison’s. Jefferson slides onto the seat beside him, offers a light from thin air.</p><p>“You ever smoked before?”</p><p>“Of course I have,” he scoffs, answering even as he tries to suppress memories of simpler times: Herc, him and John on a couch, passing around blunts between rounds of beer.</p><p>“Good, ‘cause if you cough, I’m gonna laugh at you.”</p><p>“Fuck off,” he shoots back without feeling before he drags in a deep inhale.</p><p>He almost fucking coughs. <em> Almost. </em> Because <em> shit, </em> even after sitting for two-odd years, it’s fucking <em> potent.</em> Better than the shit college students slung around. Good enough to give even Herc’s stash a run for its money. So he almost coughs. But Jefferson’s eyes are watching, mouth twisted into a preemptive smirk, and his willpower to deny Jefferson the satisfaction of laughing at him beats out the harsh sting in his lungs.</p><p>“Don’t choke,” he tells Jefferson when he passes the joint over.</p><p>Jefferson, in a second that fills him with so much satisfaction that he momentarily forgets about the sorry state of his heart, takes too deep of a hit and explodes into a coughing fit. Hamilton bursts out laughing, only growing louder when Jefferson sends him the nastiest, most indignant look Hamilton has ever gotten from him—or from anyone else, for that matter.</p><p><em> “That’s what you get for being prideful,” </em>Madison impassively chides Jefferson in French without so much as a glance up from his book.</p><p>Jefferson sends him an overdramatically betrayed look, then turns back to Hamilton.</p><p>“See if I ever do anything nice for you again,” he scowls, but there’s a certain pleasure in his eyes, a restrained tightness at the edges of his mouth that suggests he’s holding back a smile. He passes the blunt back over, waits until Hamilton’s taken another hit before asking. “So—you ever gonna laugh like that at something other than my expense?”</p><p>It’s a question that goes deeper than Hamilton wants to go while he’s trying to get a buzz going on. He’s surprised to find that there’s a flicker of anger in his chest, a voice in his head that wants to pin the blame on Jefferson—<em> no, </em> the angry part of him wants to reply, <em> you’re never gonna hear that any other time because you don’t need me.  </em></p><p>He closes his eyes. Breathes in smoke. Tries to calm himself.</p><p>“Nah. Nothing’s ever gonna beat seeing you taken down a peg.”</p><p>“Huh, so Madison’s your favorite?”</p><p>“I don’t have favorites,” he replies. “Just preferences for people who’re right <em>sometimes.”</em></p><p>“I’m right more than sometimes,” Madison fondly pipes in, and Hamilton has to wonder just how intensely he’s actually reading that book.</p><p>He doesn’t ask, though, because a pleasant heaviness settles into his limbs. He leans further back into the couch, lets his eyes slip closed when Jefferson takes back the blunt. It smells earthy and strong and distinctly sweet—he can’t help but to think of Hercules, his insistence that they never smoked near his fabrics, that they always kept a window open if they were at his place, even in the dead of New York’s winter. </p><p>Fuck, he can still remember the last time they’d smoked together. Can’t remember what they talked about. Can’t remember Hercules’s face, let alone his voice. Refuses to remember that Laurens was there too, arm thrown over his shoulders—refuses to. All he remembers is that Herc had leaned into their long-standing joke, freestyled something crass about corsets and horses and <em> fuck, </em> he misses that so much, misses <em> everything </em>so much, because it’s all so fucked up now. He was a better person back then, still knew who he was, still had—</p><p>“Want it back?”</p><p>“Sure,” he says, playing off the sudden scratchiness in his voice as a symptom of the smoke. Fingers linger over his when the joint comes back into his hand. It’s an accident, he figures. Drug-induced clumsiness.</p><p>Jefferson starts to talk—something about Greeks and the classics that’s probably pretentious enough to warrant a strongly-worded debate—but Hamilton refrains and just listens. Focuses on that, centers it in his mind to keep his thoughts from drifting, lets the heaviness of his limbs melt him into a mercury puddle on the couch. </p><p>Jefferson’s voice—familiar, his usual drawl drawn out to an absolute crawl—lulls him. Quiets his thoughts. Or the pot does, anyways. </p><p>He feels good. It’s cheating, he knows, not <em> real </em>goodness or happiness or relief, but he doesn’t care. It’s as hollow as the hunger that gnaws in his stomach, but it’s better than feeling something real. He lets his world narrow to the sound of Jefferson’s voice, Madison’s occasional hum of agreement, the borrowed euphoria in his chest. </p><p>Hazily, ridiculously, he debates himself about whether Jefferson is talking because he has something to say or because he thinks Hamilton prefers his voice to his own thoughts. Long minutes tick on as his limbs grow heavier. His last thought is wondering something about when he slumped over and melted into Jefferson’s side. When an arm curled loosely around his shoulder. And then he fades away, wakes up well-rested to sunlight outside his window in a bed he doesn’t remember falling asleep in the night before.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He cuts his hair. Just an inch: barely a trim. He means to cut more, but he doesn’t.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The days blend together. Hamilton can’t fucking sleep—he never can—but now he has restlessness compounding the issue. A plea to leave is on his tongue every time they’re in the room together, but a heady mix of pride and guilt keeps it from ever coming out. Jefferson and Madison seem so goddamn happy here, like they’re falling in love all over every day. If his friends are happy, he’s happy. Never mind that it’s only a pretty lie he tells himself. </p><p>He spends most of the rest of his time wandering around on warm sand by the ocean outside. At intervals, he’s tempted to go in the water, swim, but his mind brings him back to the hurricane, to the black water rising above his ankles, knees, waist, shoulders, neck, head—and he backs off before the surf rises above mid-calf.</p><p>In his nightmares, back after the one night of quiet sleep, the ocean is far less comforting: grey waters under a sickly yellow sky. </p><p>Hamilton gets twitchy, further on edge, his dreams growing into such a muddled mess of screams and blood and grief that he dreads lying down. Jefferson notices, offers up his stash of pot more than once, but Hamilton turns him down. </p><p>(He can’t stand it, can’t stand the vague, blurry memory of drifting off next to him, a taste of just what he wants so badly—only to be carried upstairs and left alone. Nightmares are better.)</p><p>He keeps himself busy wherever he can: chores, cleaning weapons, clearing infected. He’s too damn tired to focus on reading or anything else that requires higher brain functioning. He pretends he doesn’t notice Madison watching him, impassive as ever except for the few miniscule hints that betray his worry. He doesn’t let himself get cornered lest he’s asked to explain something he can’t, and he works himself to the bone.</p><p>In the moments when he can’t outrun his thoughts, his mind looks towards the future.</p><p>He wonders if he’s ever going to be able to live anywhere again. If he’ll always be on the move, never settling, never sleeping more than a couple nights at the same place. He’s stopped places recently—Montpelier and the clinic where Jefferson’s leg healed—but those were different. Involuntary stops. This is intentional stillness. And he doesn’t know if he can ever do that again.</p><p>There’s being noticed to worry about. It’s easier to see someone when they overstay their welcome. He’s wanted in the entire country, for fuck’s sake. How long will it be before he’s no longer recognizable as Alexander Hamilton? Five years? Ten? He fucking feels unrecognizable already, but even though his hair’s longer and his dark circles are deeper and his ribs jut out more than they used to, he’s still recognizable as the man who earned prime time television for cold-cocking a sitting colony representative.</p><p><em> Moot point. You’re not going to make it five years, </em> the cold voice in his head reminds him each time his thoughts go down that path. <em> Probably be dead by this time next summer.  </em></p><p>Hamilton forces himself to ignore it. He’ll stay alive.</p><p>Just like he always has and always does and always will, because even though the odds are against him, they always have been.</p><p>(He knows the real reason why he can’t stay still. He knows the answer is lying dead somewhere in Charleston. Has seen it: if you settle, you die. It’s instinct as much as it is grief. Knows that he can’t explain it to them, knows that he barely got out of Charleston the first time. Doesn’t know if he can get out again if he lets his mind go back).</p><p>It doesn’t matter that claustrophobia closes in on him. He’s trying to be the friend he wants to be, and that means making sacrifices.</p><p>Because maybe Jefferson and Madison really aren’t as happy with him around—but that they sacrifice comfort and their dynamic when they’re alone for him.</p><p>Someday, a few years down the line, they’ll probably settle. Maybe alone. If there are communities of survivors left, then maybe they’ll lay roots in one once they’ve aged enough to be unrecognizable. But they’ll probably live somewhere in a nice house with a garden out back, surrounded by walls that don’t keep them nearly as safe as they think, the kind of walls Hamilton finds suffocating, that he knows aren’t ever really safe.</p><p>It’s probably what they want.</p><p>And just another piece of evidence for how he works wrongly into their lives. A piece of a puzzle crammed into a position where it doesn’t fit.</p><p><em> They’re going to leave you one way or another, </em> Hamilton’s mind whispers to him. <em> Maybe you should just leave them first. Spare yourself the humiliation. </em></p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“It’d be nice to have some kind of base,” Jefferson remarks over lunch one afternoon, and Hamilton feels every fiber of muscle in his body turn to stone. “Just to have a rendezvous point if we ever get split up. And, you know, someplace to stash some extra supplies. Storage space. Fuck knows I hate having to throw out books when things get tight in the trunk. </p><p>Hamilton knows that the last bit is perfectly manufactured bait, laid out just for him. Even Jefferson doesn’t hate getting rid of good books as much as he does. </p><p>He also knows that what Jefferson’s suggesting has very little to do with storage space and everything to do with a sense of stability. It’s what he’s been telling himself for days: Jefferson will probably want to settle someday. Madison too. </p><p>Jefferson, always so perfectly rooted, always so perfectly secure, never used to growing up on an empty stomach, negative numbers in a bank account, fending for himself. Still longing for the stability Hamilton gave up pursuing months and months ago. Of course Jefferson wants home to mean something other than the backseat of an Escalade. Of course he wants to have roots, somewhere he can come back to. Of course he wants to settle.</p><p>He still has someone to build something with.</p><p>“People find you when you stay still,” Hamilton thickly says, because that seems easier to say.</p><p>“Doesn’t mean we’d <em> settle down. </em> We could come now and then to rest. Once a month, max.”</p><p>It feels like a negotiation, and Hamilton’s eyes slide to Madison to see just who he’s negotiating with, whether it’s just Jefferson, or whether this is a premeditated discussion, if Madison is merely a moderator letting Jefferson do the talking. It’s pointless, he knows. Madison’s expression is neutral, impassive: he’s there in the pretense of mediation, yes, but he’ll choose Jefferson first. He always will.</p><p>“Once a month is too regular,” Hamilton protests. He wants to argue against it all, make Jefferson drop the subject, but… <em> compromises, </em> he nauseously reminds himself. <em> Just fucking try not to be a piece of shit for once. </em>He sips at his wine, swallows the phantom bile in his throat. “Too easy to track. Three months.”</p><p>“Six weeks,” Jefferson counteroffers, slipping easily into the role of the politician Hamilton used to hate. “And,” he tacks on distastefully, “I’ll do your chores while we’re here.”</p><p>And, fuck, from Jefferson, who practically gags at having to do any goddamn menial labor, that’s a pretty big goddamn compromise. Never mind that the mindless tasks are most of what’s been keeping him sane while he’s here. Hamilton’s teeth nip into his tongue.</p><p>Fuck. Jefferson is trying. He <em> has </em>to try.</p><p>“Two months,” he weakly replies.</p><p>“Six to eight weeks.”</p><p>He wants to push harder. Really. But there’s a flicker of strange vulnerability beneath Jefferson’s blustering pride, something almost pleading, and he folds.</p><p>“Six to eight,” he concedes, breaking eye contact. “But at irregular intervals. Longer if anyone sees. And... we don’t park the Escalade in front of the house. You can put in a garage somewhere a mile or two away.” He keeps his face desperately blank, because the last thing he wants is for them to know how much he fucking hates being here when they’re so fucking happy. “Those terms to your satisfaction?”</p><p>Jefferson sits back in his seat, substituting seriousness for a bright white smile. His hand slides unconsciously over to take Madison’s.</p><p>“Of course,” he says, smile gleaming. “What more could I want?”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Madison finds him wandering the shore later that evening, eyeing the little sandcrabs that rise out of pools every time the waves recede.</p><p>“Would you like company?” he asks, considerate; Jefferson wouldn’t ask. Hamilton still can’t decide whether he thinks that’s endearing or obnoxious—and then he feels awful for even wondering as much when Madison is right fucking there.</p><p>He hesitates.</p><p>“Sure,” he says weakly, and Madison has the composure not to look nonplussed about it.</p><p>They walk along in companionable silence for a while, waves lapping at their bare feet.</p><p>“We haven’t spoken much the past few days,” Madison remarks, conversational.</p><p>“You’ve been busy with Jefferson,” he says, almost not concealing a note of sourness.</p><p>“I suppose this place just encourages me to make up for lost time.” Sadness flickers across his face for a split second. “I have more lost time than most.”</p><p>Hamilton walks another few steps before he at last decides to ask,</p><p>“You, uh… still alright with everything from Montpelier?”</p><p>“Alright is overly ambitious. You never fully heal from loss when grief is nothing but love with nowhere to go. You simply learn to live with it all and move on,” Madison replies quietly. “And I’ve suffered enough loss. Even if I had no obligations to anyone else, I deserve to move on.”</p><p>Hamilton wets his lips.</p><p>“You can talk about it. If you want.”</p><p>“I’ve run through it all enough times in my mind already. Some of my siblings were there for the inauguration but weren’t buried in the plot. It stands to reason that some survived.” He closes his eyes a moment, stops walking. “I think my eldest sister took them and escaped. Perhaps it’s just a fantasy to think that anyone else alive,” he concedes, “but it’s one I believe benefits me. And I have the convenient excuse of being at the top of the country’s hit list as a reason to avoid searching for them and possibly finding out otherwise.”</p><p>“Yeah. Not knowing is better,” he agrees numbly.</p><p>Because wouldn’t he choose not to know about John if he could? Choose to keep some shred of flickering hope in his chest that believed he was still alive?</p><p>“Thank you,” Madison says. “For earlier today,” he clarifies. “I appreciate you compromising for Thomas’s sake.”</p><p>“Didn’t do it just for him,” he responds, but as the words leave his mouth, he realizes they’re the truth. “If it weren’t for being wanted, you’d want someplace to settle too, wouldn’t you? But you didn’t want me to feel like I was outnumbered. Is that why you didn’t say anything today?”</p><p>He’s right, because a flash of surprise crosses his expression—gone in a second, concealed by a cough, but not fast enough. </p><p>“What makes you say that?”</p><p>
  <em> You miss the stability. A sense of place. That’s what meditation’s about, isn’t it?  </em>
</p><p>“I just know you,” he deflects, shrugging defensively. “I pay attention. That’s it.”</p><p><em> Oh, </em>Madison says, quiet. It holds some weight that Hamilton feels like he doesn’t quite understand. Silent seconds drag on as they walk, as he tries to work it out. Then, Madison asks what he’s almost certainly found him intending to ask in the first place.</p><p>“Alexander, have I done something to upset you?”</p><p>Hamilton falters mid-step.</p><p>“No.</p><p>“You’ve been—”</p><p>“You haven’t.”</p><p>“Alexander, if—</p><p>
  <em> “Drop it.” </em>
</p><p>Hamilton only looks at him from the corner of his eye, but he sees the aggressive unreadability of Madison’s face, feels a flash of frustration swell in his chest.</p><p><em> Yes, </em> some awful fucking part of him says, <em> you fucking have. </em></p><p>He hates himself for thinking it. It’s not fair to Madison. Madison can’t help what he doesn’t know, what Hamilton can’t tell him, and Hamilton has upset him over something that isn’t even his fault, that could <em> never </em>be his fault. It’s Hamilton’s fault, and his alone.</p><p>“No,” Hamilton says again, though he can tell Madison is too clever, too perceptive to truly believe it. “I just…” There’s nothing he can safely say to finish the sentence. So he just says, “I just want to keep looking for a cure, I guess. It’s nothing to do with you, Madison. Really.”</p><p>And they both pretend not to notice how flat his voice sounds.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It’s only in the middle of July when he finally scales to the top of the lighthouse. It’s a gorgeously clear night, and, fuck, he can see the whole damn Milky Way. He brings a six-pack of Sam Adams brand beer scavenged from the house’s pantry, two packs of cigarettes, and his astronomy book. He hasn’t had a good chance to look at the constellations in a while now, and it’s so damn hot on the second floor of the house that his sheets stick to him like glue.</p><p>It’s cooler up so high with the breeze blowing, altogether pleasant. He spends half an hour alone, alternating between smoking cigarettes down to stubs and scrutinizing stars before Jefferson slides through the door and greets him with a tired but content smile. He’s dressed for bed in sweats and a t-shirt.Hamilton chooses not to remark on the bruise purpling on his collarbone or the flush that still warms Jefferson’s neck. He knows the score.</p><p>“Do you need something?” he asks, as curt as he can get away with.</p><p>“Was just gonna see if you were plannin’ on coming in anytime soon. James and I were gonna crash, so I wanted to make sure I wasn’t gonna accidentally lock you out.”</p><p>“Thanks.” He shrugs. “Not tired. I’ll come in through the upstairs window.”</p><p>He bends back over to read right as Jefferson steps forward and leans against the railing. He blinks up at the sky, moonlight bathing his face.</p><p>“Still reading that?” he asks, tipping his head towards the book in his hand. “Well? Feel like you’re officially an astronavigator yet?”</p><p>“Sure, if all I need to know how to do is head north. Why?”</p><p>“Just thinking ‘bout sailing away again. You know, classic escapism,” he laughs. “Finding some nice quiet island somewhere. Doesn’t have to be tropical long as there’s no infected, no bandits, no fucking Redcoats. Just the three of us together. But...” He shrugs airily, smiles in a way that makes Hamilton’s heart twist. “This ain’t too bad either.”</p><p>Hamilton wants to believe him, but the truth of the matter is that he’s slowly coming to the realization that he won’t ever be happy around either of them again. It <em> isn’t </em> bad, maybe not for Jefferson—not yet. But it is for him. He’s <em> not </em>happy. Not in any way that really matters. Maybe for little flashes at a time. Maybe for impermanent, fleeting moments.</p><p>Maybe anything more is too much to ask when he’s the person that he is. But is being alone really better than this? Because, god, he doesn’t want to be alone.</p><p>(But it’s better to choose to be alone than to be abandoned, isn’t it? And that’s what’ll happen when Madison or Jefferson catches on, isn’t it?)</p><p>“What, you don’t miss your stupid fucking suits and sommerliers and all your other materialistic shit?” he wryly asks, desperately trying to deflect from what he’s feeling.</p><p>“Course I miss ‘em. I’m not Mother fuckin’ Theresa,” Jefferson scoffs lightly. “Asceticism never really suited me, but that’s besides the point. I’ve got you and James. These days, having two people you love seems pretty damn good to me.”</p><p>If Jefferson had sliced through his sternum and pulled out his heart, it would’ve hurt less. Hurt less than for Jefferson to say <em> I love you </em>and mean it in the wrong way. Hurt less to be put in the same category as Madison when their situations couldn’t be more different.</p><p>Because Jefferson would leave him for Madison if it came down to it. That has never changed. Maybe they <em> are </em> close, maybe even closer than he thinks—but Hamilton will never quite bridge the gap that isolates him. </p><p>Does Jefferson think he’d do the same? Trade either or both of them for Laurens if he could? </p><p>Would he? </p><p>It terrifies him that he doesn’t know. It terrifies him more that he doesn’t know what that says about him.</p><p>“It’s not my old life. Can’t get that back. Or most of the people that used to be in it,” Jefferson goes on, grief slipping into his eyes. But he looks over, somehow manages to shine with happiness anyways. “But fuck it. This is good too. Different, but good. Even if I don’t ever stop missing the old days, doesn’t mean I can’t be happy.” His smile softens. “And I am.”</p><p>Hamilton shifts on his feet, wanting nothing more than to get away. He doesn’t want Jefferson to look at him like that. Not when it’s the kind of way that he usually reserves for Madison. He doesn’t even want to have this conversation to begin with.</p><p>“That’s…”</p><p>“That’s you, you know. Part of it, at least. I’m happier than I was because you’re here,” Jefferson tells him, not an ounce of sarcasm or anything but sincerity in his voice.</p><p>One of his ribs must be broken. Cutting into his ribcage.</p><p>When Hamilton proves that he can’t quite make the words, Jefferson twists his smile into a smirk, challenges him with raised brows, gives him an out.</p><p>“I know. Surprises me too.”</p><p>“Jackass,” Hamilton weakly replies, because he doesn’t know what else to do if not take the easy out he's been handed. </p><p>He looks out to the ocean, tries not to close himself off, afraid it’d be too suspicious. A moment passes, then Madison calls to them from somewhere down below. Hamilton makes no move to the steps. Jefferson lingers a moment longer, then reaches out, lays a hand over his. Hamilton resists the urge to yank away with every fiber of his being.</p><p>“Come inside soon?" </p><p>“Okay,” he lies.</p><p>He doesn’t. He falls asleep with his back to the door, curled up on the inside of the landing of the lighthouse stairs. Going back to the house feels unbearable.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton pretends he isn’t as thankful as he is when they finally fucking load back up into the Escalade, but he feels more fidgety than a kid during the Christmas service. And Madison touches his shoulder just before they all slip into the car, so he wonders how well his facade played off after all.</p><p>As the house fades in the rear view, it’s like an anvil has been lifted off his chest. Just being back on the road is enough to drain the pent-up anxiety from his chest. The restless itch under his skin soothes with each mile further away they get. He doesn’t know how he’ll stand going back in less than a couple months. Doesn’t know what he’ll do.</p><p>(Only it’s not a couple months. It’s much, much longer than that, and he comes back alone.)</p><p>He’s so exhausted that he passes out to the Escalade’s quiet hum before they even hit the highway. His dreams are quieter for a while—almost pleasant. A smile white as the lilting ivory keys he hears. He searches for the music’s source but never finds it, wanders lost until the sound is buried beneath the shrieks of infected he can’t see, gunfire he can’t hide from.</p><p>There’s a moment when he wakes up, a brief moment when, out of the corner of his eye, he catches Madison looking at him in a way that doesn’t quite fit into the perfect perception he has of their world.</p><p>But it’s just his imagination.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>July passes. They fall back into familiar patterns: driving, scavenging, foraging. Between being hunted and immobilizing injuries and grieving, Hamilton had hardly paid attention to his inanimate surroundings for months. But with nothing imminent weighing on his shoulders except for the one thing he’s desperate to ignore, he finds new distractions in the world. </p><p>It’s July, and humanity is slowly succumbing to terminal illness, but the world is brilliantly alive. Orchards and berry bushes and fields and untended gardens grow heavy with fruit even without people to tend them. The streams are thick with fish, the woods are full of food to forage, and it’s so goddamn green everywhere he looks. Ivy creeps across half the surfaces in sight in some places; grass and moss encroach onto pavement and asphalt, and even though he knows better, it doesn’t <em> feel </em>like the world is dying.</p><p>(Distantly, he wonders about New York. If there’s anything green left—or just burnt-out building husks. He wonders if his old apartment is still standing. If there’s anything left.)</p><p>They stop at a luxurious sprawling estate for a few days. There’s fucking croquet court out back that he fucks around with just for the novelty of it all—shit, he thought they didn’t even exist outside of old 90s high school movies. There are gorgeous gardens. He spends a lot of time in those. Sometimes brings out of the set of charcoals he found a few weeks—but he can never quite bring himself to start drawing. </p><p>Mostly, he spends most of his time with a book in the house’s expansive library. He and Jefferson come up with a game, force the other read one of their favorite books to discuss. He’s not sure why they bother—each time, they eviscerate the other’s choice. </p><p>Hamilton finally resolves himself to just making Jefferson read the worst literature he can find, which he picks out off a shelf of bodice rippers according to how sensual the cover is. Jefferson responds by dropping a copy of <em> Atlas Shrugged </em> onto his lap. Reading that one almost convinces Hamilton that maybe he <em> isn’t </em>in love.</p><p>It’s all good entertainment—and some of the only entertainment they have. Maybe more of a distraction, because Madison’s conspicuously absent during their stay. He spends nearly the entirety of their stay alone, meditating. Or claiming he’s doing as much, at least.</p><p>Whatever it is he’s working through, it’s not going well. There’s a certain distance in his eyes, a tension in his shoulders that doesn’t quite drain no matter how many times Jefferson presses kisses to his hand. He avoids eye contact and speaks shortly. Hamilton thinks little of it for a bit—even though it’s rare, Madison is entitled to being in a bad mood just as much as him and Jefferson—but as time wears on, worry replaces indifference.</p><p>“Is something wrong?” he asks Madison early the third morning when he stumbles outside to smoke and finds Madison sitting on the patio, cold tea in hand. “It’s five in the fucking morning.”</p><p>“You’re awake, aren’t you?” he asks, terse. “Am I not allowed to do the same?”</p><p>A sliver of anxiety creeps up his spine as he replies, “Yeah, but you and Jefferson usually get up at the same time.” </p><p>Madison doesn’t meet his eyes, keeps his gaze fixed on the barely orange horizon.</p><p>“Look,” Hamilton tries again, wetting his lips. “Is everything okay? Jefferson’s worried about you. You’ve seemed kind of off the last couple days—and that’s fine!I just wanted to see if… uh, you know, if I can do anything. I mean, can I?”</p><p>“No,” Madison says, and there’s a distant but distinct sour note in his voice that he doesn’t quite manage to suppress. “You do plenty already, Alexander.”</p><p>Hamilton freezes. </p><p>Madison fucking knows. That’s what this is about. <em> He fucking knows. </em></p><p>He’s sure of it.</p><p>“Okay,” he gets out, throat dry. He swallows hard. “Just let me know if you...”</p><p>And then he turns on his heels and beats it back inside.</p><p>A tired Jefferson meets him on the stairs as he’s rushing to his room to do—fuck, he doesn’t know. To pack his bags and go? To fucking sleep and hope he falls into a coma? He doesn’t know. All he can hear is the wild pounding in his chest, feel the certainty that he’s about to be caught and called out, discarded, turned away from the only two people he has.</p><p>Jefferson sees the look in his eyes, grabs his arm, holds him there.</p><p>“What the fuck’s going on? Infected?” he asks, instantly at full alertness. “Where’s James?"</p><p>“No, no infected, I just…” Jefferson waits, dramatically tosses up expectant hands when he trails off. It’s so infuriating that Hamilton scowls on instinct, the familiarity of the exchange calming him down. Jefferson’s still treating him just like he always has, still acting just as he always does. He doesn’t know, at least. And Madison would tell him something that important, wouldn’t he? Maybe Hamilton’s just on edge. “Madison’s out on the patio. It’s all fine.”</p><p>Jefferson relaxes half a fraction, lets go of him, but a frown lingers on his face.</p><p>“Don’t know why he didn’t wake me up,” Jefferson remarks. He doesn’t dwell on it, though, turns his attention back to Hamilton. “Fine, so no infected. What’s got you whipped up then?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” he exhales before realizing that the answer’s not nearly good enough. He bites his lip, feigns anxiety. It comes to him easily. “I just had the thought that I might’ve left something at the motel we were at last week. An, uh, a knife. Went to check in the Escalade.”</p><p>“Yeah? Need help looking?”</p><p>“Uh, no. Don’t think so. It’s not important. Just… stupid shit.” </p><p>He looks over his shoulder out to the patio. Is he strung out over nothing? Is he just on edge over a single irritated comment from Madison?</p><p>“Is he still upset?” Jefferson quietly asks, reading his look backwards.</p><p>“He didn’t really want to talk. He…”</p><p>“It’s not personal,” Jefferson sighs. “When he’s upset over something like he is now, you can’t get a damn thing out of him. Family and friends too.”</p><p>“It happen often?" </p><p>“No,” Jefferson says, eyes narrowing at some thought Hamilton isn’t privy to. “Not much in the last few years. I had, uh, <em> suspicions </em> about why <em> . </em>”</p><p>He seems to debate sharing for a moment, but shakes his head at the last second. Freezes him out. And then Jefferson smiles, melancholy.</p><p>“But he’ll still sit with me even when I don’t wanna say a damn word. Just being there counts for something, doesn’t it?”</p><p>Hamilton thinks of all the times Madison has done just that for him: sit and wait, even if he doesn’t want to talk. Even if he never ends up opening his mouth at all.</p><p>Christ, if he <em> does </em> know, maybe Madison’s already done that for him for the last time. The thought sends a resurgence of nausea up his throat. It’s all so goddamn incongruent in his mind. He just doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t even fucking know <em> what </em>he wants.</p><p>Jefferson strides down the rest of the stairs. Hamilton watches him leave.</p><p><em> No, you know at least </em> one <em> thing you want, </em>his mind cruelly reminds him.</p><p>He wants to sit next to him, even if he’s in one of his obnoxious shitty moods, wants to be there until he feels better. He wants to hold his hand, be loved, feel like he’s not a bystander to someone else’s life. He wants to feel wanted again—not second most wanted, but fully wanted, wants to give away a piece of his soul that he couldn’t get back even if he tried.</p><p>He wants to run, to try to put this stupid, impossible fantasy behind him because he has no chance of keeping his friendships unspoiled if he stays. He wants to forget he ever met either of them. He wants to be back in Charleston before the walls fell, back in New York before the outbreak. Wants to hold onto John and his friends and everything else and never let go.</p><p>And stupidly, so goddamn stupidly, he wants to chase Jefferson down.</p><p>It’ll never happen. He trudges back up the stairs to his room.</p><p>There are a thousand irreconcilable differences that separate him and Jefferson, and the greatest of all is that Jefferson loves Madison more than he would ever love him.</p><p>And Madison deserves that. With Jefferson, he’s the dearest person in Hamilton’s small world. If Madison had said something, had given him <em> anything </em>he could do, he’d have moved hell to do it. If Madison had told him then and there to leave—fuck, he would’ve done that too.</p><p>Madison accompanies such a complicated web of guilt and loyalty and love and a dozen other things he’s wise enough not to let himself feel. Madison’s... </p><p>Hamilton doesn’t let himself finish the sentence. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>They head up to the mountains in West Virginia, try to outrun the heat. Hamilton has half the mind to just drive them all the way up to the damn Canadian border, but there are probably more Redcoats up north, so he restrains himself. At least they all handle the heat fine.</p><p>(Even though every time Jefferson eschews a shirt, Hamilton wants to strangle him). </p><p>It takes another day for Madison to at least partially realign his world on its axis. He casts aside his curtness, returns to normal on a conversational level. He talks the same, acts the same when they’re around, but he spends hours a day meditating. And he pulls back. Finds more excuses to be alone. Gives ambiguous answers when asked if something’s wrong</p><p>Jefferson fidgets, anxious, never looking quite certain with what to do with his hands. He privately speculates after another few days to Hamilton that it’s something to do with grief, something belatedly triggered by Montpelier. But even as he speaks, Hamilton sees the unconvinced downward draw of his mouth like he doesn’t quite believe what he’s suggesting. </p><p>So he doesn’t know, then.</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t know what to think. He alternates between fear that Madison’s found him out and certainty that Madison wouldn’t simply sit on that information if he knew. He’d tell Jefferson. Confront him. Kick him out. Fucking laugh at him. </p><p>But none of those things happen. July wears on. With the exception of his extra alone time, Madison gradually returns back to normal, and Hamilton finally forces himself to put it out of his mind. Jefferson does the calculus, must decide it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie, because he too seems to let it go. If it is what Hamilton’s afraid it is, then that’s a blessing</p><p>It <em> has </em>to have been something else.</p><p>But maybe he’s just desperate not to think he’s on the brink of being forced out.</p><p>He’s picking up a nasty smoking habit again, feels the twitch in his eye whenever he goes more than a couple hours without one or the irritation that wells in his chest. After all, it’s not like he’s got any shortage of stress to want to forget about. He smokes—even the shittiest brands, even fucking Marlboros—when it gets to be too much. </p><p>Too much happens often. </p><p>Jefferson catches him one night towards the end of July as he’s stumbling outside. He’s alone, notable because Madison almost always rises with him, morning or not.</p><p>“Can’t sleep?” Jefferson asks, sympathetic.</p><p>“Never fucking can,” he replies, more bitter than he means to. He swallows the sourness, softens the words with a question. “It quiet outside?”</p><p>“Haven’t heard any infected.” He catches sight of the carton in Hamilton’s hand, raises a judgmental brow. “Gonna go outside to smoke? Don’t need you to trigger James’s asthma.”</p><p>“Uh-huh, got it,” he says, even though he knows perfectly well that Jefferson doesn’t need to worry given Madison’s nonexistent asthma.</p><p>“Well, stay close to the house.”</p><p>“Sure,” he numbly agrees as he unlocks the front door and slips outside to the car.</p><p>He’s down to smoking Marlboros, but he’ll loot some souped-up Ford trucks and old gas stations soon, find more. Withdrawal sounds like the last damn thing he needs right now. He chain-smokes through one pack, then the next. Just like back in his early New York days. </p><p><em> Hercules would be disappointed in you </em>, he thinks guiltily—but not guiltily enough to stop. </p><p>If things had been different, if he and John and Herc hadn’t gotten separated getting out of New York, if that one fucking car hadn’t cut them off before they could follow Burr and the Schuyler sisters—where would he be? Would they all still be alive?</p><p>(Are any of the others even still alive?)</p><p>Fuck. He doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t even want to think about it. </p><p>He’s suppressed this exact line of thinking for years. Why is he thinking about it all now? Is he really so goddamn worn down by it all that he can’t control his thoughts? A whirlwind of nausea creeps down his throat—but maybe that’s just the cigarettes. He lights another anyways, debates breaking into the Escalade to find some booze to wash down the dry itch in his throat.</p><p>“You’re going to develop a habit,” Madison impassively remarks. </p><p>It scares the ever living shit out of him. Hamilton’s halfway to drawing his gun by the time he realizes who it is. He’s got half the mind to tell him off on instinct alone—but he just barely manages to refrain, reminding himself that Madison’s still a touch off-kilter. He doesn’t need—doesn’t <em> want </em> to push him further off his axis. He runs a hand over his face.</p><p>“If I do, then I’m gonna get cut off fast. Down to two packs,” Hamilton sourly replies, taking another long drag and pretending like he doesn’t have a habit already. </p><p>Fuck, his throat hurts.</p><p>“Then I’ll teach you to meditate.” Madison moves towards the Escalade, starts searching for something. So that’s what it is. He didn’t come out here to check up on him—of course he didn’t. He just woke up and came out to get, what? A book? Hamilton doesn’t know why the thought bothers him as much as it does. “If you’re smoking, it’s safe to bet that you’re anxious.”</p><p>His mouth twists into a pained kind of smile.</p><p>“I don’t want to talk about it.”</p><p>There’s a long drawn-out pause. Madison emerges from the Escalade with a biography in hand, and there’s a definite crack in his expression with something raw beneath.</p><p>He looks tired. Fucking exhausted, Hamilton realizes. His gaze is fatigued, barely half-awake. Deep shadows beneath his eyes stand out even against his dark skin. His posture is half-slumped over—a far cry from the straight spine he usually carries.</p><p>“Then may I talk?” he asks, a note of desperation in his voice that seems so ill-fitting that nerves strike him like knuckles.</p><p>“You don’t need an invitation,” Hamilton swallows. “It’s a free county.”</p><p>“I would wager that it isn’t,” he replies, wry, and Hamilton laughs wryly despite himself.</p><p>There’s another long pause, and something Hamilton would’ve called pity once wells in Madison’s eyes. He knows better now—knows that it’s guilt—but he can’t help but to feel like it’s pity anyways. Like Madison sees right through him, knows what he wants, thinks he’s nothing.</p><p>It’s a surprise, then, when Madison says,</p><p>“Thomas and I would’ve had years more of good time had I not broken up with him.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he replies without thinking, his mouth and mind out of alignment. “I don’t get why you did. And apparently he doesn’t either.” Somewhere in his head, he knows that he should back off instead of pushing forward. He doesn’t. “Pretty big secret to keep for so long.”</p><p>“Because I’ve never felt certain I made the right choice,” Madison admits after an agonized pause, “and I’m afraid more than ever that I didn’t.”</p><p><em> That’s what he’s been worried over, </em>Hamilton realizes with a start. As it sinks in, he almost fucking laughs in relief. Laughs at his own damn paranoia. But the joy is short-lived, because a flush of guilt comes hot on its tail. It doesn’t even matter in the end.</p><p>Madison hasn’t worked it out—<em>yet.  </em></p><p>He’s only got extra time, but the outcome is always the same if he stays.</p><p>“I believed,” Madison carefully says, “that it was the moral choice. Perhaps I wouldn’t ever find a relationship with a woman I could openly and genuinely love—but Thomas could. It was…” He trails off, the pained grimace on his face speaking volumes. “... a burden on him that he could never openly hold my hand. Kiss me. Tell anyone I was his partner. He pretended otherwise, but I knew. He’s always been that way—loud, eager to live his life in the public eye. I’ve never been quite so keen on that. And our careers would’ve been dead in the water the moment someone caught wind of our relationship.”</p><p>It’s a confession so unlike Madison’s usually carefully dolled out information that Hamilton isn’t quite sure what to process first—let alone what to say. He’s considered it all before, of course. He knows what it’s like.</p><p>Sort of.</p><p>He and Laurens had been cautious in public, considering future careers, John’s family—secrecy Hamilton had traded away in a moment of furious impulsivity at the gala. But with everything said and done—it’d been worth it. He’d make the same decision a thousand times over.</p><p>(He still remembers fleeing the scene, how once they were alone, Laurens laughed and kissed him like there wasn’t a damn thing left in the world, how he never looked at him the same way afterwards, how he looked at him like he could see their entire futures laid out back when the future had seemed so bright).</p><p>He pushes it all down. Refuses to think about it. Immunity means he has a new future, even if it’s one where he ends up alone. But that seems far from the right thing to say now.</p><p>“Why didn’t you just tell Jefferson that?” Hamilton asks, shaking his head, even though he’s beginning to get an inkling of why. “You don’t think he would’ve agreed with you? Or at least understood?”</p><p>“There was… more to the situation. It was complicated.”</p><p>Hamilton makes a sound that means nothing, offers Madison a cigarette. He takes it, checks that he’s out of the line of the sight of the windows. He almost asks if Madison ever plans on just telling Jefferson the whole asthma thing was made up to get <em> him </em>to quit smoking—but the hypocrisy feels like too much while they’re both doing it, so he just lights Madison up, lets him be lost in thought. He works his way through another few cigarettes before Madison finally speaks, voice heavy. </p><p>“I was blackmailed,” he says. “Or my father was, rather. In an election year. A particularly close race against a Tory.” His face twists. “The aesthetics of having me as a son, you understand, would not be helpful. It would’ve jeopardized his career.” Forced him to stop riding the line, condemned his son, or ostracized the people that would. Hamilton knows the score. “My career would’ve been dead in the water before it’d begun. And Thomas’s too. And so I called it off.”</p><p>And there it is.</p><p>There’s the reason what was in Madison’s father’s desk at Montpelier, the letters that Hamilton still has tucked away and doesn’t know what to do with, and he suddenly feels distinctly sure that the decision wasn’t Madison’s choice as much as he seems to think it was. There’s a reason that the letters from Jefferson never made it to Madison’s hands. </p><p>And there’s a reason for the way the bitterness in his voice seems turned toward no one but himself when that should never have been the case.</p><p>“And your dad?” he asks, because that’s what leaps out at him as the common factor in it all.</p><p>“He paid the blackmailer off. Wasn’t even surprised when he called me into his office,” he says. “But it was a temporary solution to what would inevitably be a recurring problem. I decided the risk to our careers wasn’t justifiable—not when Thomas could easily find someone else.”</p><p>Before he can think better of it, Hamilton laughs—a short burst of noise that sounds so much louder than it should. He shakes his head at the absurdity, at the rare display of complete cluelessness on Madison’s behalf. Is that what he fucking thinks? That he’s that goddamn replaceable? Is that what it looks like from on the inside of Jefferson’s affection? <em> Thomas could easily find someone else, </em>Madison had said, and he still isn’t even able to see it for the utterly absurd lie it is, is he? And why? Because he thinks Jefferson would’ve loved a woman more?</p><p>“You think he’d ever look at anyone else the way he looks at you?” Hamilton asks, more emotion slipping into his voice than he intends.</p><p>“He and Angelica were happy together,” Madison retorts, oddly taken aback.</p><p>“And who did he end up with? Come on, Madison. It was always going to be you. Any universe, any set of circumstances—he was always going to end up with you,” Hamilton insists, clawing back at the desperate longing that sucks at his chest because he needs Madison to believe at least that much. He’s not a good person, but fuck if he’s not <em> trying. </em></p><p>Madison studies him, and Hamilton finds himself struck with the by-now familiar terror that Madison’s seen straight through him—but no, he’s still safe, because Madison breaks eye contact without an accusation, without hatred spilling into his eyes.</p><p>“Then you think I made the wrong choice,” he says, flat.</p><p>Hamilton looks away, a dozen overwhelming voices clashing in his head. One throws out ideas of what he <em> should </em> say, another narrates what he <em> wants </em>to say, one takes great pleasure in reminding him that it doesn’t matter how much he does for Madison because he’ll always be fucking terrible, always be a traitor to him, doesn’t deserve whatever scraps of love he gets—</p><p>He wants another cigarette. He wants to be away. He shifts on his feet, defensively sinks into himself, shields himself with closed-off shoulders and eyes that flick towards the dirt.</p><p>Madison is here having a conversation with him about one thing, and Hamilton can’t even give him his full attention because he’s too goddamn caught up in his own selfishness.</p><p>“I think the choice you made was because of your career. Not because you thought he would be happier with someone else,” Hamilton answers, and it’s as close as he can get to what he actually thinks without risking saying something Madison doesn’t want to hear. He inhales sharply from his cigarette. Feels the sting in his throat. Lets it distract from the burn in his chest. “He wouldn’t be. As happy, sure, maybe—but like I said. Look at who he went back to.”</p><p>Hamilton means it. He doesn’t know Jefferson’s full romantic history—it figures that Jefferson and Angelica were long since broken up by the time he met her—but he can’t picture Jefferson with anyone but Madison. It was always going to be him, and Hamilton never had a chance in this universe or in any other. Fuck, in any other world, he wouldn’t be in this situation at all.</p><p>A certain rare, raw vulnerability splits open Madison’s expression, rock-solid certainty cracking to expose something frail. Hamilton blinks, surprised, not sure what to do or say.</p><p>“And was I wrong?” </p><p>“I would’ve done the same thing,” Hamilton finally offers, scant consolation. </p><p>If he’d been in Madison’s shoes, that is. Built his career up on a lie. Found some woman he could make an agreement with. The South was so much less forgiving than New York. Even if he’d shot his own career in the foot with his Henry Laurens stunt, he hadn’t even begun his long climb. He had nowhere to fall to but the ground; Madison had a long way to go. And if he’d been in his shoes, Hamilton knows himself too well to believe that he would’ve risked his legacy.</p><p>Love had seemed important at the time—and now he has neither.</p><p>But he’s still got his shot at a legacy—something he can build comes from whatever’s in his veins that keeps him from kicking it like everyone else after being bitten. It feels sometimes like he’s still waiting on his turn. It has to mean something. He’s been living aimlessly for the better part of two years, living just to keep breathing. It <em> has </em>to all mean something.</p><p>(And maybe it’s better this way. Better than his legacy was handed to him rather than hard-earned. Maybe it means fewer people get hurt in the collateral. He might’ve broken Jefferson’s heart in Madison’s shoes, but forgiving himself for it? That’d be another matter.)</p><p>Hamilton drops his cigarette, moves towards the house. </p><p>“But fuck if I know whether that makes it right. I’m not the goddamn paragon of morality,” he says, and it feels like an apology and a confession rolled into one. The words Madison told him back in Montpelier bounce around his skull and force their way from his mouth as he moves back towards the house. “I’m just a man, right?”</p><p>Madison has no answer.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He sleeps, and he dreams.</p><p>They’re driving in the Escalade—just him and Madison. He doesn’t know where Jefferson is, and he’s afraid to ask. He’s certain that if he does, Madison will tell him Jefferson is dead, and he’s sure it’s somehow his fault. So he sits in the passenger seat and tries not to fidget as they speed down an empty road towards a sickly yellow sunset.</p><p>“It should’ve been you that died,” Madison coldly tells him at long last. Hamilton doesn’t know whether he’s talking about his mother or Laurens or Jefferson—</p><p>Hamilton wakes up in the passenger seat in the Escalade. Madison’s reclined far back in the driver’s seat, chest rising and falling quietly, and Hamilton has a split second of terror where he can’t find Jefferson—but he turns around, finds his long limbs splayed out in the further row back. It’s so damn hot that even Jefferson and Madison can’t stand to sleep tangled together, he remembers as he tries to calm down his racing heart.</p><p>Hamilton lies still, desperately restless but not wanting to wake either of them. </p><p>An hour or two passes before there’s a sharp, abrupt inhale beside him, the sound of fabric shifting as Madison jerks awake. Hamilton stills, frozen as he debates whether to let on that he’s awake or not. His neck prickles. He’s sure, somehow, that Madison is looking at him. He almost thinks he feels the ghost of fingers over his cheek. But Madison shifts after a minute, lies back down, and eventually his breathing quiets again.</p><p>Hamilton opens his eyes, finds Madison on his side. He looks peaceful. Younger, without the façade of calm impartiality wringing his features flat. There are other things Hamilton might notice, he thinks-but self-preservation wins out. He forces himself to close his eyes.<br/><br/><br/></p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Do you feel fine?” Jefferson asks Madison the next morning as they traipse through the woods to refill their water containers.</p><p>“Yes,” he replies, lifting his brows. “Why do you ask?”</p><p>“I just woke up a little before you, saw you were sleeping on your side. Usually only do that when you’re sick.”</p><p>“Oh.” Madison puts a strange inflection on the word. “That’s odd. I don’t remember ever turning over.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>As July drags into its last days, Madison again retreats back into his own world. Hamilton tries to suss out if there’s any rhyme or reason to his ups and downs, but there’s nothing as far as he can find. Hamilton chalks it up to feelings over their conversation about the blackmail, but he can’t exactly interfere directly. Jefferson, attentive to a goddamn fault, notices. Of course he does. </p><p>Hamilton can’t tell whether Jefferson knows something he doesn’t or whether just can’t stand being in the dark any longer—but it must be the latter because he at last corners Hamilton late one evening while he’s out smoking out on the porch of some farmhouse-type place out in the country. His brows are drawn, stress written clearly into the way he stands.</p><p>“You’ve been smoking too much lately,” Jefferson remarks unhelpfully, too preoccupied to quite able to make the jab land. “Gonna give yourself lung cancer.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, at least it’d be a natural death,” he wryly replies, trying to ignore the blossom of warmth in his chest when Jefferson snorts, pretends he doesn’t think he’s fucking hilarious, relaxes just a little.</p><p>“Don’t think that anything that can be avoided with common sense counts as a natural death.”</p><p>“Didn’t <em> you </em>used to smoke?”</p><p>“Yeah, but I quit a decade and a half ago ‘cause of James.” His face twists with worry at Madison’s name, and the tension is all back. He sinks into one of the rocking chairs laid out on the porch, uncharacteristically fidgety. “I’m, uh, pretty worried about him. He says he’s fine, but, shit, I don’t know. It’s been a couple weeks, Hamilton. He doesn’t ever get wound up this long.”</p><p>Hamilton nips teeth into his tongue, then—even though his cigarette isn't even half-smoked—he grinds it under his heel and , then hesitantly sits down in a chair on the porch.</p><p>“You said….uh, you said a little while ago you thought it was ‘cause of Montpelier, didn’t you? I mean, he lost most of his family in a day. They might have already been gone, but… you know, it’d be hard on anyone,” he says. Guilt creeps in at his words; even if they’re not necessarily lies, it still feels like they are. Still feels like Jefferson’s trusting him, and he’s turning his back.</p><p>“Has he said anything to you lately?” Jefferson asks, turning to him.</p><p><em> Yes, </em>he thinks, even as he opens his mouth to deflect.</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>Jefferson’s eyes snap to him, and Hamilton’s certain he sees right through him. Hamilton holds his gaze steady, but Jefferson sees something he can’t hide and shakes his head angrily, stands so abruptly his chair nearly tips over. In a fit of frustration, he storms to the railing.</p><p>“Fucking Christ, you're both bugging out on me. Jesus, I just want to know if he’s said anything to you. I deserve to know what’s wrong with my own goddamn h—partner.”</p><p>It’s not his place. It’s not his place to get involved in their relationship, to interfere in things that aren’t his. His place is on the other side of the door that separates them from him.</p><p>“That sounds like it’s between the two of you,” he says, a defensive note in his voice.</p><p>“He told you not to tell me?” Jefferson deduces, and now there’s confusion accompanying the hurt in his voice. His entire posture shifts from concerned to upset in the space of a few seconds, and he whirls around angrily when Hamilton stands to join him.</p><p>“He didn’t,” Hamilton says. It’s not quite a lie, but it’s close enough. </p><p>“Uh-huh. Just <em> implied </em>it was between you, then?” Jefferson accuses, shoulders growing tighter.</p><p>With denial out the door, he falls back onto aggressiveness. </p><p>“It was—fuck. Look, it’s not my fucking problem, okay?” He steps away. “I’m not here to be your couples’ therapist. Leave me out of your damn relationship.”</p><p>“It feels like <em> I’m </em>the one getting left the hell out!” Jefferson snaps, almost shouting.</p><p>Hamilton can’t find his voice. He’s fucking lucky he can’t. He doesn’t know what he would say if he could. He just feels the furious tremble of his hands at his sides.</p><p><em> You don’t know a damn thing about what it feels like to get left out, </em>he thinks. </p><p>Jefferson sweeps him over with a look. Hamilton doesn’t know whether he sees how short his fuse is to blowing or whatever else it is, but he backs off. Jefferson collects himself within a few seconds, shakes his head, pinches the bridge of his nose. </p><p>“Look—shit,” he exhales, remedial, forcing his shoulders to relax. His voice stays stiff, strained, and there’s iciness in eyes that doesn’t quite melt. “You’re right, okay? It’s not your problem, and you shouldn’t have to be caught between us. I’ll drop it.”</p><p>But he doesn’t want to. </p><p>Still, he reaches out, sets a pleading hand on Hamilton’s shoulder and squeezes. The touch feels like a goddamned fire brand. He tenses up tighter.</p><p>“But please, if there’s anything I need to know—<em> really </em> need to know—please tell me. We both care about him, right? No damn reason we shouldn’t be on the same team.”</p><p>A stiff <em> yeah </em>is all he’s able to agree to.</p><p>What’s one more lie? What’s one more fucking secret?</p><p>(Just one more, and then they all spill over.)</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He’s out smoking one night when Madison joins him, sits down onto the steps beside him. It’s a surprise: he doesn’t know how Madison knew he was awake, nor did the man want much to do with anyone during the entire day. He spent it meditating, mostly.</p><p>“If you’d rather be alone, I can go inside,” Madison offers after a time’s passed.</p><p>Hamilton’s mind drudges up the conversation he and Jefferson had not all that long ago.</p><p><em> “But he’ll still sit with me even when I don’t wanna say a damn word. Just being there counts for something, doesn’t it?” </em>Jefferson’s voice echoes in his mind.</p><p>He doesn’t want to be alone. He doesn’t want to be alone so badly, even though he knows there’s really no choice for him in the end. So he looks over. </p><p>Deep remorse fills him. He could be such a good friend. <em> They </em>could be such good friends. If it wasn’t for the invisible wedge between them, the one Madison doesn’t even know exists. They could be—they could be a lot of things in some other life, Hamilton thinks.</p><p>He wonders if Madison feels the same.</p><p>“No,” is all Hamilton says to him. “Stay.”</p><p>And Madison does.</p><p>“Alexander,” he says when the sun at last rises and he stands up to go inside. “You know you’re a good man, don’t you?</p><p>He freezes.</p><p>
  <em> No, I’m not. If you knew, you wouldn’t believe that. </em>
</p><p>“I, uh… thanks.”</p><p>“I mean that, Alexander,” he says quietly. “I’ve been thinking as I’ve sat here, and I believe it. I know how much you do for us both. Regardless of what it means for you.”</p><p>Is he talking about the scar on Hamilton’s neck? The times he’s thrown himself between them and a horde of infected? How he’s skipped meals when he knows their stores are low?</p><p>“I only wish you could yourself the way I see you,” Madison says, even quieter.</p><p>And Hamilton doesn’t know how to tell him that he’s wrong. Too forgiving. That he should just put whatever energy he gives to Hamilton towards Jefferson, because Hamilton will just disappoint him in the end. So he just forces a smile and says nothing at all.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Please pass the salt, dear,” Madison says absentmindedly at dinner one night.</p><p>Hamilton ignores the comment so clearly not directed at him. There’s a beat of silence before Jefferson reaches over Hamilton’s plate to grab the shaker. He spares half a second of irritation to wonder why Madison just didn’t fucking <em> ask </em>him—and then he looks over, sees a flash of mortification on Madison’s face, the pointed blankness on Jefferson’s.</p><p>There’s a ridiculous suspicion that brews in his mind, but he dismisses it with a scoff before it can take root and grow.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>As the August heat bears down and wears on, it almost becomes routine—and then the sunsets and sunrises blend together into endless summer heat until it <em> is </em>routine, as much of a part of his life as breathing. The hiding. The lying. The moments where he forces himself to look away or leave a room because he’s sure if he doesn’t, he’ll expose the reason behind the awful guilt in his chest.</p><p>The guilt he learns to live with fastest. After all, he’s been living with some degree of guilt long since before he even left Nevis, when his mom died but he didn’t. He’s felt it even more acutely since Charleston, even more since he got the scar on his neck. The guilt he feels towards Madison is entirely different. Madison is still alive. Madison he can still hurt. But it’s still guilt. He gets used to carrying it, even if he never feels any less like a fucking traitor for it.</p><p>He doesn’t get used to the heartache. He holds onto irrational hope that one day he’ll wake up and Jefferson will make him scowl just like it used to, but the day doesn’t come. He tries to shove his feelings away with the rest of his grief and loss and everything else he refuses to let himself feel, but it’s not as easily hidden—not when the images are right in front of him. There’s nothing actively reminding him of New York, Columbia. He’s forgotten his friends' faces. Doesn’t have to see Laurens’ unless he pulls out the picture in his pocket.</p><p>But every time he walks into a room and Jefferson and Madison are sitting next to each other at a table even though there’s a seat on the other side, he has to live with it. Think about it.</p><p>And he thinks about it all the damn time.</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t get used to it. Doesn’t think he ever will. He only gets used to the idea that he’ll never be satisfied. The idea that the satisfaction he <em> does </em>have is temporary.</p><p>He knows that they’ll find out eventually. He’s known since the fucking start, and there’s a particular suspicion that’s lingered in Jefferson’s face for days, that wells up at odd intervals. Hamilton is certain it has something to do with him, is certain that Jefferson is collecting the pieces he’s been unable to avoid leaving behind.</p><p>Thoughts of leaving fade, then surface, then fade again. He delays serious thoughts of leaving, even though it seems inevitable now. It’s bad for him. He knows it is, because the more time he spends with them, the more terrifying the thought of being alone again becomes. And he’s fucking trapped. Trapped: the more time he spends with them, the closer they come to finding out. The closer he comes to fucking it all up.</p><p>And what then? He’ll stay alive, but there’s a distinct difference between staying alive and living. What he’s doing now is miserable and anxiety-inducing, but at least he’s living. At least he has moments where his feelings are far enough away that he can smile, laugh. The thought of dragging himself out of bed to do nothing but keep his heart beating sounds so fucking depressing.</p><p>But he has to. Has to remember how to survive on his own. He knows it’s coming.</p><p>And so he pulls fully away and finds comfort in the one constant he’s had nearly a year, in the one sliver of hope he can still look towards: immunity. The scar on his neck is healed enough to be indistinct. He could pass it off as some kind of burn if someone didn’t look too closely, didn’t notice the little teeth-edge ridges in the scar tissue. He knows better.</p><p>Inevitably, his mind shifts towards what he’ll have to do. How much more does he have to sacrifice? How far will he have to go? Sam Adams promised he would pass along any information he found on any kind of vaccine research, but that was months ago. They haven’t even heard from him or Hercules in weeks, and there was still nothing last time.</p><p>What if England is his only real option?</p><p>He would have to go alone. He’d probably be executed the second he set a foot into the king’s castle. But even if they listened, what life would he have? A rotting cell, waiting for news about Jefferson and Madison and the Sons? He’d be helpless.</p><p>(But isn’t he helpless here too?)</p><p>No matter how he parses it, he loses Madison and Jefferson. Whether it’s because they find out, or because he has to find someone who could make a cure on his own, the road ends in the same place. He ends up alone. </p><p>And as the truth settles heavy as lead into his limbs, he decides that it’s better that he ends up alone by his own choice. Better that he chooses to leave rather than has to leave hearing the awful taunts from his nightmares echoing in his ears. Better that he can hold on to what happiness he’s found with them rather than have it stripped away and spoiled.</p><p>Maybe they’ll be confused, hurt, but it’ll spare them all worse feelings in the end. Madison and Jefferson will eventually go back to their domestic bliss, the complete freedom they had before he ever showed his face. </p><p>Hamilton can still hold some place in their heart, but he can’t hold onto them. </p><p>The worst part of it all is that he won’t be able to protect them any longer. Won’t be able to wrestle infected away with his bare fucking hands to keep them from being bit. Can’t offer himself up as bait. Won’t be able to put himself on the line every damn time because he’s got his stupid fucking immunity to shield him.</p><p>He just has to trust that they can take care of themselves. They could before him. They have to once he’s gone. He’ll do the same.</p><p>Hamilton pulls away. </p><p>He eats alone when he can. Makes himself scarce during the day. Spends time wandering through abandoned neighborhoods, sharpening the skills he’s let soften while he’s had someone else to watch his back. He thinks, tries to acclimate himself to being alone.</p><p>It fills him with the same empty ache he felt after escaping Charleston.</p><p>Jefferson gets frustrated with his aloofness as the week wears on, torn between Madison and Hamilton slipping away from him at two angles, his inability to work anything out between either of them. He works out incessantly, vanity ever-present to protect him. Hamilton’s a brick wall when Jefferson questions him, stays well away from any conversations between Jefferson and Madison.</p><p>It’s a good thing that Jefferson’s hurt, he numbly tells himself. It hurts him too, but it’s a good thing. It’s a good thing. Jefferson wouldn’t be confused, wouldn’t be hurt if he had figured everything out. </p><p>It’s a delicate, miserable balance. There’s no happy ending for him, but there probably never was. The only way this was ever going to end was with him alone or dead.</p><p>Madison and Jefferson can have something better. Without him.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><hr/><p> </p><p>It's the middle of August when he fucks it all up.</p><p>He fucks it all up on the day he decides to leave. He just had to make it through <em> one damn day, </em>and he can’t. He fucks everything up. He fucks it all up. He’s so fucking—</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>There are half a dozen times when Hamilton should’ve learned his lesson.</p><p>After everything that happened with Laurens in Charleston, he drank too much, so damn irresponsibly, woke up once with an infected half a second from cannibalizing him. Wouldn’t have really mattered if he’d known then he was immune, but he hadn’t. Instead, it ended with him escaping putting a bullet in his brain by half an inch and a split second. </p><p>He doesn’t have to worry about that anymore, at least, but there’s a new set of ways to fuck up drinking around other people. He drinks too much and risks losing control of his tongue, his expressions. He drinks too much and sometimes he gets mean, as fucking mean as his dad was before he split, and he says things he regrets before he’s even half-sober. He’s done it before. He knows he does it. Knows a fuck-up is coming.</p><p>He drinks too much and fucking implodes the last two things he has that matter when all he’s tried to do is make sure they’re happy.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He tries to commit every detail of the day to memory. Tries to memorize every angle and curve and slope of their faces, even though he knows they’ll slip from his mind with time.</p><p>He cooks breakfast. Makes lunch. Goes hunting with his bow until he brings back duck for dinner. Lets himself get close one last time. Jefferson seems fucking thrilled just to have him talking normally again, and they cook dinner together. Jefferson doesn’t even act like a smartass when Hamilton uses what he’d usually refer to as <em> an excess of hot sauces, really, there </em> are <em> flavors other than burning out your taste buds.  </em></p><p>It would be so easy. So easy to just meet him when he turned. Lean up a little. Kiss him. </p><p>A goodbye, even if Jefferson wouldn’t know that yet.</p><p>It would be so easy. But he won’t. He won’t, and he doesn’t.</p><p>He feels empty. Untethered. Sucked dry.</p><p>Jefferson opens an exceptional bottle of sherry at dinner. It’s some bottle from the 1950s that’s probably worth more than Hamilton’s entire pre-outbreak net worth. Hamilton has half a glass and thinks it’s fucking terrible, switches over to his shitty paint-thinner beer as Jefferson always so lovingly calls it. He’ll miss that, he thinks.</p><p>He listens doggedly to the conversation, tries to commit everything to memory. </p><p>It feels like the last supper.</p><p>Jefferson says he sort of likes the sherry but that it’s too dry for his tastes. He switches over to water halfway through. Madison, who’s been especially withdrawn today—maybe because of Hamilton’s reinvigoration or maybe in spite of it, maybe the reason Jefferson chose to open such a nice bottle to begin with—slowly comes back to life as he makes his way through the better part of the bottle. He talks, at last cracks a smile at some joke Jefferson’s made, lays his hand over Jefferson’s where it sits on the table.</p><p><em> They’ll be alright, </em> Hamilton tells himself. <em> And you’ll stay alive. </em></p><p>He’s only half-present now, sinking deeply into dread. The conversation swirls on without him now that Jefferson has someone else to talk to. Hamilton escapes from despair just long enough to hear Madison offhandedly airs some grievance about the Redcoats and the minutiae of their economic maritime policies and colonial trade, then Hamilton goes off on a tangent, always so eager to talk about his biggest academic passion. Any kind of distraction.</p><p>He goes on <em> way </em> too damn long—<em>talk less, </em>some ghost of Burr’s voice echoes in his mind—and he abruptly shuts himself up.</p><p>But then Madison launches off into an equally impassioned speech, uncharacteristically animated. He’s maybe a little drunk, because there’s a flush warming his dark skin and his hands move to punctuate every sentence, and he stops only to take another sip of sherry.</p><p>It’s endearing, Hamilton thinks, even as something in the back of his mind warns him against thinking along those lines. Doesn’t matter anyways. He’s gone soon. But if he thinks Madison’s endearing, it’s nothing next to whatever Jefferson thinks. </p><p>Jefferson watches Madison talk with more affection in his eyes than it seems possible for any one man to hold. There’s relief there, too—probably that Madison has mellowed out, even if it’s only until his buzz wears off. In an unusual show of restraint, he refrains from participating in the conversation, throwing in some clever wrench that Hamilton usually hasn’t even considered.</p><p><em> Fuck, </em>Hamilton hates him. Hates how damn smart he is. Hates that he’ll have no one to match wits with after tomorrow. Might not ever have anyone again.</p><p>“If it might interest you, I have a bottle of tequila tucked away,” Madison tells Hamilton, lifting and swirling the last of the bottle of sherry. “I’m sure it’s sufficiently terrible for your tastes, and I’m sure I’m too drunk to have preserved my palate.”</p><p>Hamilton swallows the last of his beer. Something in his mind warns him against getting too drunk. He’s already so close to leaving with everything still intact. He doesn’t want to somehow risk fucking everything up, have to run away with a sour taste in his mouth.</p><p>His instincts are right, but he ignores them. He’s going to keep drinking. Because this is the last time he can be a friend to Madison, who’s been a fucking rock to him even through his many, many fuck ups, his months and months of emotional distance. Because he can’t say goodbye, but he can at least try to make as many memories as he can to hold onto.</p><p>And because this is the last time he’ll have someone to chase away the loneliness. The last time he can pretend that he isn’t going to walk away tomorrow morning just as hollow as he was before they found him. Madison and Jefferson put the air back into his lungs, and—</p><p>Madison comes back down with the tequila, and he drinks deeply straight from the bottle.</p><p>There’s not a goddamn person that can stop him—certainly not himself.</p><p>There are bad ideas, and then there are ideas that belong to a category all of their own.<br/><br/></p><hr/><p> </p><p>Hamilton catches up to Madison quickly, and soon the two of them are talking more animatedly, more openly than they have in weeks. It feels so damn normal that Hamilton can almost forget it’s the last time it’ll happen. Jefferson doesn’t jump in for the most part, visibly distracted. He disassembles his shotgun, strips the parts, cleans it all out—keeping watch while he and Madison get even more wasted off their asses than they already are. </p><p>Smart. And also probably fair. Jefferson has had to walk to bed with an arm around Madison’s shoulder more than once in the past month after cracking open a bottle of especially expensive wine. Still—the thought’s nice.</p><p>Sometimes, Jefferson <em> is </em>nice. He’s lots of things. Lots of things. Good, bad, obnoxious, too much. Too much for Hamilton’s bruised heart to handle. He doesn’t think much about those things, though. The alcohol lets them slip easily from his mind, sand between his fingers.</p><p>At some point, he and Madison stop debating and start talking. </p><p>He talks about Nevis. He talks about his mother. New York. Only the good things. Doesn’t talk about his dad or the hurricane. Doesn’t talk about lying sick next to his mom. Watching her breathe in and out. In and out. Until there was one last breath out and no more in. </p><p>He talks about the happy things. Happy images to hold onto. About all the trouble he got up to as a teen. Stealing shipments from Redcoats in the Nevis ports. The spats he got into with loyalists at Columbia. He confesses to the dozens of angry calls and letters he sent in to protest their legislation, tells them about the rants he used to go on to anyone who would listen.</p><p>Madison listens with a fondness in his eyes that Hamilton can’t label until later. Jefferson pushes away his shotgun and just listens. He seems happier tonight. Relieved that things seem a little like they’re normal. Hamilton tries not to think about whether all the good will between them will be spoiled by tomorrow morning. Even if they never understand why he left, they’ll forgive him for it. Won’t they?</p><p>“And I’m hoping you’re eventually gonna get to the part where you realized you were wrong about us all along?” Jefferson smirks when Hamilton can’t think of another damn thing to say.</p><p><em> More wrong than you know, </em>he wants to say. But he just scowls, hides his expression by taking another chug of tequila.</p><p>“See if I ever tell you shit again.”</p><p>A silence falls. Hamilton thinks they must find it comfortable, but he doesn’t. He feels the weight of it heavily on his shoulders. Knows that silence is all he’ll have before long. After a minute, Jefferson checks his watch, ducks outside to the Escalade, comes back with one of their jugs of purified water, sets it on the table. </p><p>“Remember this when you feel like being a jackass ‘cause you’re hungover tomorrow,” Jefferson chides him, and Hamilton is glad he can’t really see straight, because he’s sure Jefferson’s smirking at him in the way that always seems so damn taunting, the look that he always sort of wants to kiss off his face. “Even when you’re a brat, I’m still looking out for you.”</p><p>“Oh, you’re such a saint,” Hamilton croons to him. “What could I ever do to make it up to you?”</p><p>“If you’re that sweet to me already, maybe I should eighty-six you now.”</p><p>Hamilton laughs. Smiles. Is he smiling too brightly? Did he laugh too loud? He doesn’t know. Jefferson doesn’t look too long, so he figures it must be fine. It’s probably fine. It’s fine. </p><p>But when he turns back around, Madison is watching him, thoughtful, unreadable. Why is Madison watching him? Did he give something away? Hamilton’s heart starts to pound harder in his chest, but Jefferson steps over, kisses Madison.</p><p>“Think I’m going to bed,” Jefferson says, excusing himself, and what was left of his smile falls right off his face.</p><p>So that’s it. It’s over. Almost a year of his life concluded.</p><p>Hamilton wishes desperately that Jefferson wouldn’t go yet. If he knew it was probably the last time the three of them would, would he still leave? Would he say anything else?</p><p>
  <em> What’s he gonna do tomorrow when you’re not there? </em>
</p><p>Hamilton can’t think of a way to ask him to stay. Can’t think of a way to hold on any longer. He has to let go. He’s holding onto a rope that’s getting pulled away, and it’s just gonna burn away the skin on his hands if he keeps holding tight. He has to let go.</p><p>“I didn’t realize it was so late,” Madison says, moving to stand.</p><p>There’s half a moment of something narrow-eyed in Jefferson’s expression as he looks over to Hamilton, but he shakes it off, seems to scoff at whatever thought’s crossed his mind. He turns back to Madison, smiles warmly.</p><p>“No. Stay. You two have fun.” His mouth twists into a smirk. “Someone’s gotta stay and tell Hamilton why he’s wrong if he starts talking policy again.”</p><p>“And you’re running away to leave your more articulate boyfriend to do it?” Hamilton goads him, hoping it’ll be just enough to make him sit a little longer.</p><p>But Jefferson just puts on a show of rolling his eyes and leaves the kitchen. And then he’s gone.</p><p>Hamilton almost chases him down.</p><p>
  <em> I was thinking about what you said in the lighthouse. About being happier because I’m here. And I don’t get it. I don’t. But I’ve… </em>
</p><p>He doesn’t move. He doesn’t know what he’d say.</p><p>Hamilton pours himself another shot, throws it back. Pours himself another.</p><p><em> This is a bad idea, </em>some distant part of his mind warns.</p><p>It’s just him and Madison, both drunk. Madison has his own issues right now. He doesn't need Hamilton adding to the pile.</p><p><em> This is a bad idea, </em>he thinks, more urgently, the words clearer in his mind.</p><p>He looks at the doorway Jefferson just exited from. Thinks of telling Madison goodnight. Calling it a night. Going to bed. Leaving on a high note. It’s a good note to leave on.</p><p>But then Madison hums some four-note melody, pours them both a new glass of wine, and clinks their glasses together. He smiles just about as widely as he ever does, so wide his teeth almost show. Hamilton’s fingers knot tighter around his glass.</p><p>“To the two of us,” Madison toasts, laughing in drunken reverie. There’s something so light about it, so uncharacteristically free, that Hamilton can’t stand the thought of dampening his good mood by leaving him to drink alone. Not when he’s such a shitty friend already.</p><p>Hamilton lifts his glass, feels his mouth twisting into a matching grin.</p><p>“I’ll drink to that,” he says, and they clink glasses again, down their drinks too fast.</p><p>
  <em> Bad, bad, bad idea. </em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>There are bad ideas, and then, when all’s said and done, there are ideas that leave nothing left to burn but ash.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He doesn’t quite know how it happens. He replays it all over in his mind a thousand times, and he never pinpoints just when and where he fucks it all up.</p><p>It’s a series of things slowly going wrong, he decides.</p><p>It starts when he motions too dramatically mid-speech, throws himself off-balance, leans forward too sharply. Madison hastily reaches out, grabs hold of his arm, holds him steady.</p><p>Hamilton straightens again, vaguely dizzy but safely upright. Madison doesn’t move away. His hand stays laid cool against his flushed skin, and he lists unthinkingly into the touch. </p><p>God, he misses it. The simple contact of someone brushing back his hair. A hand on his arm to check in. A hand on his back to keep him steady. Just simple human contact. </p><p>Something he’s not going to get anymore. So it feels alright, then, to soak it in now. Like he can store it up in reserve. Draw back on it.</p><p>He looks into Madison’s eyes, finds them dark and full of some emotion he can’t quite pin down. He’s a little too drunk to think past the fog clouding his thoughts, so he just grins.</p><p>“What would I do without you?” he croons. Madison at last withdraws his hand, looking away.</p><p>“If you’re anything like Thomas, crash and burn, I suppose.”</p><p>And, Jesus, does he.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>And then Madison says something about the future. About the three of them. About how they might all head west together soon enough.</p><p>And it sinks in that even though Hamilton’s part of their future plans, they aren’t in his. </p><p>“And perhaps you’ll have the chance to meet someone,” Madison finishes.</p><p>Suggestion is clear in his voice, and even though Hamilton hasn’t been listening for a minute, he hears that much. Suggestion that there’s still someone out there for him like the last person that would ever love him like he wanted is dead. Like the only person he’s met since that he has loved would never feel the same way. He smiles bitterly, laughs sourly, speaks acidically.</p><p>“I think someone’s already, uh, fallen in love with me for the last time.”</p><p>Madison’s expression shifts to something Hamilton doesn’t know how to read drunk. Fuck, he probably couldn’t read it sober. He can barely see straight for more than a second.</p><p>“Hamilton—” he starts, but Hamilton can’t stand the thought of being pitied. Not right now.</p><p>“Look, it’s fine. You know. Just how it all panned out.” His throat stings as he lies so unconvincingly. “I don’t care. Really.”</p><p>“Alexander,” Madison tries again, voice softer. </p><p>Hamilton has heard his first name plenty from Madison’s mouth by now, but there’s something new about hearing it here, in this context. He shifts in his seat, lifts his gaze, meets Madison’s eyes. The man regards him with dark eyes and an expression too hard to read between the light of a single candle and Hamilton’s swimming vision. The silence between them rests thickly, but it’s somehow less heavy than he’d expect.</p><p>“Perhaps a change of subject is warranted,” Madison says at last, forcing indifference. </p><p>At least, Hamilton thinks he is. His voice seems a little strained, but maybe it’s the tequila. Hamilton doesn’t know. He hardly ever fucking knows. Trying to read Madison is like trying to read a fucking—a fucking— god, he doesn’t even know.</p><p>“I never know what you’re thinking,” he blurts out, brows gathering together. And then quieter, without meaning to, he says, “Guess I never will.” </p><p>Madison’s hand slides towards him but stops. He looks away.</p><p>“You think more than enough for the three of us. You hardly need my thoughts bouncing around in your mind.”</p><p>“Well, maybe I want to know,” he carefully replies, lingering on the words so his tongue doesn’t trip. “Maybe I wanna be let into your head. Just for tonight. If it’ll—if it’ll help.”</p><p>“There are things that are better left unknown,” Madison says, eyes focused on his hands. “And there are burdens that are mine to carry and mine alone. You’re mistake—mistaking that I tell Thomas everything I don’t tell you. There are lots of things that <em> neither </em>of you know.”</p><p>He tries not to feel disappointed at being shut out when he knows that it’ll be the last chance he has to listen. But he understands. He does. Better than anyone.</p><p>“Guess we got that in common,” he tells Madison in some attempt at comfort.</p><p>“Perhaps. But I would wager I know more than you think.”</p><p>The words ring like a warning bell in his ears, and the alcohol in his stomach turns nauseating within the span of a second. Madison is watching him, but Hamilton refuses to meet his gaze. He swallows, tries to slow his heartbeat enough to speak.</p><p>“Like what?” he asks with a playfulness that falls flat, trying to play the moment off. “You find my old poetry journal or something?”</p><p>Silence drags on. Hamilton still refuses to look at his face, but he hears the coolness in his voice.</p><p>“I don’t understand how still you don’t trust me.”</p><p>Hamilton freezes. Even his heartbeat stills, waiting, the silence thicker than blood.</p><p>He knows. He fucking knows. He’s thought a hundred times before that Madison knew, but this time, he’s sure. He’s certain. Madison knows.</p><p>“I do,” Hamilton tries to say, but he waits too long, and Madison scoffs.</p><p>“Christ, I don’t know why…” He shakes his head, speaks heavily. “I know that you’re in love with Thomas. I’ve known for weeks, Alexander.”</p><p>
  <em> For weeks.  </em>
</p><p>How long is that? Since—Jesus, since Madison started to act oddly to begin with. Since Madison dismissed him on the patio. Jesus, the entire time. The entire time.</p><p>
  <em> He knew the whole fucking time.  </em>
</p><p>He tries to wake up. Tries to believe he’s just in some nightmare.</p><p>But the kitchen doesn’t disappear. Madison is still watching him, and he’s still painfully conscious.</p><p>Nausea hits him like a fucking truck. Blood pumps wildly through his ears. He shrinks away, wide-eyed, tries to sink into his seat and out of existence. One day. He was <em> one </em>day away from avoiding this conversation, the inevitable rejection, and now Madison knows, and—</p><p>
  <em> ohnofuckohfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck— </em>
</p><p>“Why didn’t you…?” is all his horror lets him get out.</p><p>“I am trying to do what’s best,” Madison replies, frayed, gripping the tequila bottle tightly. “And I’m not sure of what that is, but you make it <em> so damn hard.” </em></p><p>
  <em> He knows. </em>
</p><p>This time, there’s no grey area.</p><p>Hamilton stumbles halfway onto his feet before Madison snatches hold of his arm, holds him down. Madison knows him too well, knows how he fights or flees on instinct, knows, knows <em> everything. </em> Fuck. He knows <em> everything, </em> fuck, fuck, <em> fuck— </em></p><p>“It’s alright,” Madison tries to say, and he’s pulled in yet another direction, guiltier over Madison offering him more forgiveness that he hasn’t earned, guiltier over how much Madison fucking <em> tries </em>for him when he’s such a goddamn fuck up, ruins every damn thing he touches—</p><p>“Bullshit,” Hamilton says in a sound that approaches closer to a sob than he wants to admit. The hurt lurking under his ribcage starts to boil over its dam. What’s left of him that’s still sober frantically tries to hold it back and breaks down all at once. “It’s <em> not </em> okay! It’s not fine that I lose or ruin every goddamned good thing that happens to me! It’s <em> not fucking okay!” </em></p><p>“Alexander—”</p><p>“You tell me you care and that I’m just as important and that it’s the same thing and it’s not, it’s fucking not, I’m <em> not </em>important. I know where I stand. Just fucking tell me that. Just tell me to get the hell out, tell me to leave, and I can…” His voice cracks. “And I’ll go back to being alone.”</p><p>There’s a long silence, then the most pitying <em> oh, Alexander </em>he’s ever heard. He tenses up every muscle in his body, feels his chest shake in sobs he refuses to let himself feel.</p><p>“Listen to me,” Madison says, soft, firm, unyielding, in the same tone he uses to try to calm Jefferson when he’s terribly upset. It feels like another betrayal. “You <em> don’t </em>know where you stand. If you did, then you wouldn’t ever believe that I could...”</p><p>“Please, just let me go,” he chokes out.</p><p>“Alexander, I—”</p><p>“Stop saying my name!” he blurts out, shaking his head—it feels like another intimacy he doesn’t deserve. “Just let me go. I’ll leave. You can—just go back to normal. Like I was never here.”</p><p>“For Christ’s sake, Alexander, I don’t <em> want </em>you to leave!”</p><p>“Well, what <em> do </em>you want?” he shoots back, but his voice grows frailer and shakier as he speaks. “You want me to keep hanging around knowing that I’m in love with your fucking soulmate? I’m...” And now, choking, he sobs just once. “I’m sorry. I’ve fucked everything up.”</p><p>“No more than I have,” Madison soothes him, and something about the statement seems wrong, but it doesn’t quite register. Not yet. It just sinks in and sinks in without settling.</p><p>“I don’t get it,” he chokes out. He’s the awfulest friend Madison could have, but he gets forgiven like that? It’s that easy? He can barely think, barely speak. “I don’t get it. Why are you okay with this? What do you—what do you mean, <em> no more than I have? </em>How could you...”</p><p>Something about the words seems even more wrong said aloud a second time. Hamilton wills himself to focus, to make some kind of fucking sense out of the words. He can’t. God, he’s so fucking drunk. He feels so fucking sick. Feels bile turning over in his stomach. But he swallows it down, refuses to bend. He needs to understand. He knows that much.</p><p>He’s only more certain he needs to push through it when Madison doesn’t answer.</p><p>“I…”</p><p>Hamilton’s mind thrums. He waits for the inevitable correction, the inevitable explanation or apology for misspeaking. He waits, but Madison never provides. His fingers only grow tight around the glass of tequila in his hand. His eyes only grow wide. Panicked.</p><p>“Madison?” Hamilton asks, feeling himself grow anxious in response.</p><p>Madison doesn’t answer, just suddenly stands, lurches, barely catches himself of the edge of the table, and Hamilton makes a big fucking mistake. </p><p>This time it’s him who reaches out, grabs Madison’s arm and holds him there.</p><p>“Let me go,” Madison demands, but his voice has none of its usual force when he’s so visibly overwrought. “We can have this conversation while we’re sober—not right now.”</p><p>“There isn’t going to <em> be </em>another time!” Hamilton snaps. Instantly sure he’s said too much. He hastens to get out, “Just tell me what you mean. I don’t get it. I misheard you, I had to have—please, just explain.”</p><p>Madison, a deer in headlights, stares him down. Makes no move to explain.</p><p>There’s a long silence where nothing at all makes sense, where the world’s fallen completely off its axis, where Hamilton is in complete freefall with no parachute.</p><p>He swallows.</p><p>“James,” he quietly says without knowing why, without knowing what he’s looking for until—</p><p>He finds it.</p><p>It’s the feeling of seeing lightning flash in the dark, a single moment of clarity where everything makes sense, a moment that feels better than any freedom he’s ever had. </p><p>Nothing at all makes sense, but it all falls into place.</p><p>Madison is in love with him.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He doesn’t know why he does it. What stupid, self-serving, selfish part of him drives him to do it.</p><p>(But he does: it’s the part of him that so desperately wants to be wanted. Wanted in the way he wants to be wanted. Wants him first, not just as a footnote.)</p><p>Madison wants him that way. He’s wanted. Someone wants him, wants to love him again, wants to fall asleep with him, wants to help him carry the burdens he bears, wants to be with him. Sees him for the fucked-up mess he is and cares about him anyways.</p><p>For just a second, something in his heart that he wasn’t sure was fixable mends.</p><p>The world narrows down to the two of them, nothing else, and he doesn’t wait, doesn’t hesitate long enough to let doubt in, to think things through.</p><p>Thomas isn’t even a thought on his mind when he leans in and kisses Madison like he’ll never be wanted again.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The world is still and silent and, in an ephemeral moment, perfectly safe.</p><p>There’s not half a second before Madison leans forward too and Hamilton is whole.</p><p>A hand on his thigh. Another on his shoulder. Lips on his: frantic, desperate, scrambling. Tastes like bad tequila and something Madison. Fingers flex, dig into his thigh. </p><p>Madison’s hand rises from his shoulder to cup his face and drag him in so closely that Hamilton wonders if he’ll ever be set free to breathe again. Madison kisses him back like there’s not a damn other thing in the world, and Hamilton believes it. </p><p>It’s the simplest, purest thing Hamilton’s felt in eighteen months. Uncomplicated bliss.</p><p>He doesn’t know whether it’s one second or sixty before the high crashes.</p><p>When, abruptly, Madison freezes, Hamilton feels in his chest it’s the last time he’ll ever feel loved again. </p><p>He knows the score before Madison even moves. Gasps. Horrified. Yanks away like he’s been burned. The regret isn’t a surprise. God knows that Hamilton feels it deeper than he’s felt anything else for months. But it still hurts.</p><p>Madison shoves Hamilton away so hard that he topples out of the chair. He swipes to grab at the counter, fails, only succeeds in sweeping empty glass bottles to fall with him. He hits the ground hard, pain from the impact dulled by alcohol, and glass shatters into thousands of shards around him. Above him, he hears a frantic, terrified monologue of <em> what have I done, Christ, what have I done, no, no, how could I, I couldn’t have— </em>and then Madison lurches up, retches, stumbles to the door and then outside.</p><p>And still it gets worse.</p><p>Jefferson scrambles into the kitchen before the door’s even fully shut, shotgun in hand, eyes wild. Worried eyes fall onto Hamilton laying stunned in a sea of glass.</p><p>“Jesus, what happened?” Jefferson rushes to ask, and, God, Hamilton wants to hate him so badly. He wishes he hated him. He wishes he— “Where’s James?”</p><p>Jefferson answers his own question with a glance out the door, exhaling a sharp sigh of relief. He turns, looks at Hamilton, so worried, so concerned, caring so deeply. </p><p>But under that, there’s suspicion that only mounts with each passing second, isn’t there?</p><p>Hamilton remembers, abruptly, painfully, that it isn’t about him and Madison. It never was. It never was, and, Christ, what <em> has </em>he done? Ruined everything. Disappointed them just like he knew he would. His breath hitches with a sob, and he’s at last too worn down to hold anything back a moment longer. Hamilton sobs viciously, deeply, as every tear he’s held back since Charleston fights to pour out of him at once.</p><p>He’s going to be alone, and it’s all wrong.</p><p><em> “Shit,” </em> Jefferson swears beneath his breath before pivoting, backpedaling, trying to soothe. “Hey, hey, <em> shh </em>. Take a breath. Calm down. Tell me what’s wrong. I can fix this, alright?”</p><p>Hamilton closes his eyes, choking, prays Jefferson will just leave him the fuck alone. His shoulders shake violently. Jefferson moves instantly towards him, then stops, steps away.</p><p>“Look, don’t move, alright? Just give me a second to get some shoes.” He pauses. “Hamilton?”</p><p>Hamilton doesn’t reply, and he doesn’t wait for Jefferson to come back, cuts his palm on glass trying to stand. He staggers into a bedroom, fumbles with the lock, then collapses onto the bed. If he were any less drunk, he would already be gone, out the door into the night, gone, gone, gone.</p><p>He should’ve left sooner.</p><p><em> Tomorrow, </em> he thinks, <em> tomorrow, before they wake up. </em></p><p>There’s a knock on the door.</p><p>“Hey,” Jefferson calls, voice empty. “You, uh… wanna talk?”</p><p>He stays silent, but the door opens anyways.</p><p>“Yeah, well, that was a rhetorical question. We’re gonna talk,” he says. The bed dips beneath his weight as he sits on its edge. His earlier concern seems to have melted, left behind something colder in its wake. “Hamilton, what the fuck happened?”</p><p>There’s a particular look in his eye, a particular draw in his shoulders. He already has his own idea of what happened, and Hamilton’s afraid more than anything that it’s the right one.</p><p><em> He already knows, </em>his mind whispers.</p><p>Has Madison already told him? Does he just want to hear it from Hamilton’s own mouth? Does he want to see if he’ll lie? Hamilton doesn’t know. Can’t do the math well enough.</p><p>He closes his eyes. <em> Fuck. </em>In for a penny, out for a pound. What the fuck does one more lie matter when he’s gone before sunrise anyways?</p><p>“I said something about his family,” Hamilton lies with a cracking voice, “and he got upset.”</p><p>“Okay,” he responds after a moment, quiet fury shaking his voice. “Right. And <em> what specifically did you say?” </em></p><p>Hamilton just can’t do it anymore.</p><p>“Just stop, Thomas,” he whispers. “Just leave me alone.”</p><p>He swallows down the sob at the back of his throat, turns in the bed, and looks at the far wall. Even if it’s just his own paranoia, Jefferson is looking at him like he knows everything, and it’s just too much to take. He can’t take anything else. He can’t take another fucking pound of weight on his shoulders. He’s already crumbling under everything he’s carrying.</p><p>“You’re such a fucking asshole sometimes, you know that?” Jefferson asks, but it’s not a question, and there’s a barely restrained tremble of anger beneath each word.</p><p>The bed rises as he stands. The door closes.</p><p>Rest never comes. </p><p>He sleeps, sure, but never well.</p><p>His dreams are dark, confusing, lonely. He dreams of a hand on his thigh trailing upwards, lips on his. Being frozen beneath a horrified stare. Being chased by something he can’t see. Running alone. Jefferson’s voice, betrayed. Yellow skies and dead eyes. </p><p>He’s on a beach. Looking for someone. He doesn’t know who until he turns around, finds dead eyes watching him, pitying, hating. A body bleeding from a dozen different bites. Dead eyes that aren't dead, that have the same vicious sheen as every infected he's ever watched die at the end of his knife.</p><p>“You really fucked it up now,” Laurens tells him, smiling, and there’s no love in the gesture.</p><p><em> No, </em>he thinks. </p><p>And then he’s alone for good.</p><p>
  <em> No. No no no nononono— </em>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i said this at the beginning but really, thanks again to everyone who has stuck with this fic while my life has been an absolute shitstorm. it's been mostly good! just extraordinarily busy, and fic has been pushed to the back burner. it should come as no surprise from someone who posts 25k chapters, but i AM a huge fucking overachiever IRL, so. not committing to an update schedule anymore because historically the end of the spring semester is a bitch. i'll do my best to get the fic finished over the summer bc i know next fall will be equally chaotic. some housekeeping:<br/>-wow we haven't even hit rock bottom for the three of them yet lmao. 140k just to get a fucking kiss goddamn<br/>-can't believe i have to say this, but this fic is and always has been rated explicit. minors, if you're here, it's you ignored the warnings. don't fucking contact me over anything remotely sexual mentioned in the fic.<br/>-i'm thinking of seriously cutting my chapter lengths to something reasonable (5-10k). please leave your thoughts on that and what you prefer for chapter length in the comments<br/>-kudos are great. comments are my pride and joy and are 90% of the reason i even finished this chapter to begin with. leave both if you can! long comments will make me cry</p>
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